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* FRANCE 



THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 

1830-1890 



6y (^ 



/ / 




EMPEROR NAPOLEON I. 



FRANCE 



IN 



THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 



1830-1890 



BY 



ELIZABETH WORMELEY LATIMER 



AUTHOR OF "salvage, 



MY WIFE AND MY WIFE'S SISTER, 



"PRINCESS AM^LIE." "FAMILIAR TALKS ON SOME 
OF SHAKESPEARE'S COMEDIES," ETC. 




CHICAGO ^iy 

A. C. McCLURG AND COMPANY 
1892 






Copyright 

By a. C. McClurg and Co. 

A.D. 1892 



NOTE 

The sources from which I have drawn the ma- 
terials for this book are various; they come largely 
from private papers, and from articles contributed to 
magazines and newspapers by contemporary writers, 
French, English, and American. I had not at first 
intended the work for publication, and I omitted to 
make notes which would have enabled me to restore 
to others the "unconsidered trifles" that I may have 
taken from them. 

As far as possible, I have endeavored to remedy 
this ; but should any other writer find a gold thread 
of his own in my embroidery, I hope he will look 
upon it as an evidence of my appreciation of his 
w^ork, and not as an act of intentional dishonesty. 

E. W. L. 

September, 1892. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER 



PAGE 



I. Charles X. and the Days of July ... 9 l^M- - 

11. Louis Philippe and his Family .... 34 |^'54'- /6 

III. Louis Napoleon's Early Career ... 58 

IV. Ten Years of the Reign of the Citizen- 

King 81 

V. Some Causes of the Revolution of 1848 93 

VI. The Downfall of Louis Philippe ... 108 

VI I. Lamartine and the Second Republic . . 125 

VIII. The Coup d'Etat 150 

IX. The Emperor's Marriage 165 

X. Maximilian and Mexico 191 

XL The Emperor and Empress at the Sum- 
mit of Prosperity 215 

XII. Paris in 1870, — August and September . 238 

XI II. The Siege of Paris 256 

XIV. The Prussians in France 282 

XV. The Commune 301 

XVL The Hostages * 323 

XVII. The Great Revenge 349 

XVIII. The Formation of the Third Republic . 372 

XIX. Three French Presidents 400 

XX. General Boulanger 427 



FRANCE 



IN THE 



NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

1830-1890. 



CHAPTER I. 

CHARLES X. AND THE DAYS OF JULY. 

LOUIS XVIII. in 18 15 returned to his throne, borne 
on the shoulders of foreign soldiers, after the fight at 
Waterloo. The allied armies had a second time entered 
France to make her pass under the saws and harrows of 
humiliation. Paris was gay, for money was spent freely by 
the invading strangers. Sacrifices on the altar of the Em- 
peror were over ; enthusiasm for the extension of the great 
ideas of the Revolution had passed away ; a new generation 
had been born which cared more for material prosperity 
than for such ideas ; the foundation of many fortunes had 
been laid ; mothers who dreaded the conscription, and men 
weary of war and pohtics, drew a long breath, and did not 
regret the loss of that which had animated a preceding gene- 
ration, in a view of a peace which was to bring wealth, com- 
fort^ and tranquillity into their own homes. 

The bourgeoisie of France trusted that it had seen the 
last of the Great Revolution. It stood between the work- 
ing-classes, who had no voice in the politics of the Restora- 
tion, and the old nobility, — men who had returned to France 
full of exalted expectations. The king had to place himself 
on one side or the other. He might have been the true 



10 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Bourbon and headed the party of the returned emigres, — in 
which case his crown would not have stayed long upon his 
head ; or he might have made himself king of the bourgeoisie, 
opposed to revolution, Napoleonism, or disturbances of any 
kind, — the party, in short, of the Restoration of Peace : a 
peace that might outlast his time ; et apres moi le deluge / 

But animals which show neither teeth nor claws are seldom 
left in peace, and Louis XVIII. 's reign — from 1 8 14 to 1824 
— was full of conspiracies. The royalty of the Restoration 
was only an ornament tacked on to France. The Bourbon 
dynasty was a necessary evil, even in the eyes of its sup- 
porters. " The Bourbons," said Chateaubriand, " are the 
foam on the revolutionary wave that has brought them back 
to power ; " whilst every one knows Talleyrand's famous 
saying " that after five and twenty years of exile they had 
nothing remembered and nothing forgot." Of course the 
old nobility, who flocked back to France in the train of the 
allied armies, expected the restoration of their estates. The 
king had got his own again, — why should not they get back 
theirs? And they imagined that France, which had been 
overswept by successive waves of revolution, could go back to 
what she had been under the old regime. This was impossi- 
ble. The returned exiles had to submit to the confiscation 
of their estates, and receive in return all offices and employ- 
ments in the gift of the Government. The army which had 
conquered in a hundred battles, with its marshals, generals, 
and viettx moustaches, was not pleased to have young officers, 
chosen from the nobility, receive commissions and be charged 
with important commands. On the other hand, the Holy 
Alliance expected that the king of France would join the des- 
potic sovereigns of Russia, Austria, and Prussia in their cru- 
sade against liberal ideas in other countries. Against these 
difficulties, and many more, Louis XVIII. had to contend. He 
was an infirm man, physically incapable of exertion, — a man 
who only wanted to be let alone, and to avoid by every means 
in his power the calamity of being again sent into exile. 

He placed himself on the side of the stronger party, — he 
took part with the bourgeoisie. His aim, as he himself said, 



CHARLES X. AND THE DA YS OF yUL V. 1 1 

was to mcnager his throne. He began his reign by having 
Fouche and Talleyrand, men of the Revolution and the 
Empire, deep in his councils, though he disliked both 
of them. Early in his reign occurred what was called the 
White Terror, in the southern provinces, where the adher- 
ents of the white flag repeated on a small scale the bar- 
barities of the Revolution. 

The king was forced to put himself in opposition to the 
old nobles who had adhered to him in his exile. They 
bitterly resented his defection. They used to toast him as 
le roi-guand-meme, '' the king in spite of everything." His 
own family held all the Bourbon traditions, and were op- 
posed to him. To them everything below the rank of a 
noble with sixteen quarterings was la canaille. 

Louis XVHI.'s favorite minister was M. Decazes, a man 
who studied the interests of the bourgeoisie ; and the royal 
family at last made the sovereign so uncomfortable by their 
disapproval of his policy that he sought repose in the society 
and intimacy (the connection is said to have been nothing 
more) of a Madame de Cayala, with whom he spent most of 
his leisure time. 

Before the Revolution, Louis XVIII. had been known 
sometimes as the Comte de Provence, and sometimes as 
Monsieur. Though physically an inert man, he was by no 
means intellectually stupid, for he could say very brilliant 
things from time to time, and was very proud of them ; 
but he was wholly unfit to be at the helm of the ship of state 
in an unquiet sea. 

He had passed the years of his exile in various European 
countries, but the principal part of his time had been spent 
at Hartwell, about sixty miles from London, where he formed 
a little court and lived a life of royalty in miniature. Charles 
Greville, when a very young man, visited Hartwell with his 
father, the Duke of Beaufort, shortly before the Restoration. 
He describes the king's cabinet as being like a ship's cabin, 
the walls hung with portraits of Louis XVI., Marie Antoinette, 
Madame Elisabeth, and the dauphin. Louis himself had a 
singular habit of swinging his body backward and forward 



12 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

when talking, ^' which exactly resembled the heavings of a 
ship at sea." ^' We were a very short time at table," Gre- 
ville adds ; " the meal was a very plain one, and the ladies 
and gentlemen all got up together. Each lady folded up 
her napkin, tied it round with a bit of ribbon, and carried 
it away with her. After dinner we returned for coffee and 
conversation to the drawing-room. Whenever the king 
came in or went out of the room, Madame d'Angouleme 
made him a low courtesy, which he returned by bowing 
and kissing her hand. This little ceremony never failed to 
take place." They finished the evening with whist, "his 
Majesty settling the points of the game at a quarter of a 
shilling." "We saw the whole place," adds Greville, 
" before we came away ; they had certainly shown great 
ingenuity in contriving to lodge so great a number of peo- 
ple in and around the house. It was like a small rising 
colony." 

Louis XVIII. was childless. His brother Charles and 
himself had married sisters, princesses of the house of 
Savoy. These ladies were amiable nonentities, and died 
during the exile of their husbands ; but Charles's wife had 
left him two sons, — Louis Antoine, known as the Due 
d'Angouleme, and Charles Ferdinand, known as the Due 
de Berri. The Due d'Angouleme had married his cousin 
Marie Th^rese, daughter of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoi- 
nette. Their union was childless. The Due de Berri had 
married Marie Caroline, a princess of Naples. She had 
two children, — Louise, who when she grew up became 
Duchess of Parma ; and Henri, called variously the Due 
de Bordeaux, Henri V., and the Comte de Chambord. 

All Louis XVIII. 's efforts during his ten years* reign were 
directed to keeping things as quiet as he could during his 
lifetime. He greatly disapproved of the policy of the 
Holy Alliance in forcing him to make war on Spain in 
order to put down the Constitutionalists under Riego and 
Mina. The expedition for that purpose was commanded 
by the Due d'Angouleme, who accomplished his mission, 
but with little glory or applause except from flatterers. 



CHARLES X. AND THE DAYS OF JULY. 13 

The chief military incident of the campaign was the cap- 
ture by the French of the forts of Trocad^ro, which com- 
manded the entrance to Cadiz harbor. 

The Duchesse d'Angouleme, that filia dolorosa left to 
languish alone in the Temple after her parents and her 
aunt were guillotined, had been exchanged with Austria 
for Lafayette by Bonaparte in the treaty of Campo- 
Formio; but her soul had been crushed within her by 
her sorrows. Deeply pious, she forgave the enemies of 
her house, she never uttered a word against the Revolu- 
tion ; but the sight of her pale, set, sad face was a mute 
reproach to Frenchmen. She could forgive, but she could 
not be gracious. At the Tuileries, a place full of graceful 
memories of the Empress Josephine, she presided as a 
dhwte and a dowdy. She could not have been expected 
to be other than she was, but the nation that had made 
her so, bore a grudge against her. There was nothing 
French about her. No sympathies existed between her 
and the generation that had grown up in France during the 
nineteenth century. Both she and her husband were stiff, 
cold, ultra-aristocrats. In intelligence she was greatly the 
duke's superior, as she was also in person, he being short, 
fat, red-faced, with very thin legs. 

The Due de Berri was much more popular. He was a 
Frenchman in character. His faults were French. He 
was pleasure-seeking, pleasure-loving, and he married a 
young and pretty wife to whom he was far from faithful, 
and who was as fond of pleasure as himself. 

The Due de Berri w^as assassinated by a man named 
Louvel, Feb. 13, 1820, as he was handing his wife into 
her carriage at the door of the French Opera House. 
They carried him back into the theatre, and there, in a 
side room, with the music of the opera going on upon the 
stage, the plaudits of the audience ringing in his ears, and 
ballet-girls flitting in and out in their stage dresses, the 
heir of France gave up his life, with kindly words upon 
his dying lips, reminding us of Charles H. on his death- 
bed. 



14 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

As I have said, Louis XVIII.' s reign was not without 
plots and conspiracies. One of those in 1823 was got up 
by the Carbonari. Lafayette was impHcated in it. It 
was betrayed, however, the night before it was to have 
been put in execution, and such of its leaders as could be 
arrested were guillotined. Lafayette was saved by the 
fact that the day fixed upon for action was the anniversary 
of his wife's death, — a day he always spent in her chamber 
in seclusion. 

It may be desirable to say who were the Carbonari. 
*' Carbone " is Italian for charcoal. The Carbonari were 
charcoal-burners. The conspirators took their name be- 
cause charcoal-burners lived in solitary places, and were 
disguised by the coal-dust that blackened their faces. It 
was a secret society which extended throughout France, 
Italy, and almost all Europe. It was joined by all classes. 
Its members, under pain of death, were forced to obey 
the orders of the society. The deliverance of Italy from 
the Austrians became eventually the prime object of the 
institution. 

Lafayette, during his visit to America in 1824, expressed 
himself freely about the Bourbons. " France cannot be 
happy under their rule," he said ; ^ " and we must send 
them adrift. It would have been done before now but 
for the hesitation of Laffitte. Two regiments of guards, 
when ordered to Spain under the Due d'Angouleme, halted 
at Toulouse, and began to show symptoms of mutiny. The 
matter was quieted, however, and the affair kept as still 
as possible. But all was ready. I knew of the whole 
affair. All that was wanted to make a successful revolu- 
tion at that time was money. I went to Laftitte ; but he 
was full of doubts, and dilly-dallied with the matter. Then 
I offered to do it without his help. Said I : 'On the first 
interview that you and I have without witnesses, put a 
million of francs, in bank-notes, on the mantelpiece, which 
I will pocket unseen by you. Then leave the rest to me.' 

1 Vincent Nolte, Fifty Years in Two Hemispheres. 



CHARLES X. AND THE DAYS OF JULY. 15 

Laffitte still fought shy of it, hesitated, deliberated, and 
at last decided that he would have nothing at all to do 
with it." 

Here the gentleman to whom Lafayette was speaking 
exclaimed, " If any one had told me this but yourself, 
General, I would not have believed it." 

Lafayette merely answered, " It was really so," — a 
proof, thinks the narrator, how fiercely the fire of revolu- 
tion still burned in the old man's soul. 

The last months of Louis XVIII. 's life were embit- 
tered by changes of ministry from semi-liberal to ultra- 
royalist, and by attempts of the officers of the Crown to 
prosecute the newspapers for free-speaking. He died, 
after a few days of illness and extreme suffering, Sept. 
15, 1824, and was succeeded by the Comte d'Artois, 
his brother, as Charles X. This was the third time 
three .brothers had succeeded each other on the French 
throne. 

Charles X. was another James II., with cold, harsh, nar- 
row ideas of religion, though religion had not influenced 
his early life in matters of morality. He was, as I have 
said, a widower, with one remaining son, the Due d'An- 
gouleme, and a little grandson, the son of the Due de 
Berri. His two daughters-in-law, the Duchesse d'Angou- 
leme and the Duchesse de Berri, were as unlike each other 
as two women could be, — the one being an unattractive 
saint, the other a fascinating sinner. 

Charles X. was not like his brother, — distracted be- 
tween two policies and two opinions. He was an ultra- 
royalist. He believed that to the victors belong the spoils ; 
and as Bourbonism had triumphed, he wanted to stamp out 
every remnant of the Revolution. Constitutionalism, the 
leading idea of the day, was hateful to him. He is said 
to have remarked, " I had rather earn my bread than be 
a king of England ! " He probably held the same ideas 
concerning royal prerogative as those of his cousin, the 
king of Naples, expressed in a letter found after the sack 
of the Tuileries in 1848. 



1 6 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

" Liberty is fatal to the house of Bourbon ; and as regards 
myself, I am resolved to avoid, at any price, the fate of 
Louis XVL My people obey force, and bend their necks; 
but woe to me if they should ever raise them under the impulse 
of those dreams which sound so fine in the sermons of philoso- 
phers, and which it is impossible to put in practice. With 
God's blessing, I will give prosperity to my people, and a gov- 
ernment as honest as they have a right to expect ; but I will be 
a king, — and that always I " 

Charles X. was on the throne six years. He was a fine- 
looking man and a splendid horseman, — which at first 
pleased the Parisians, who had been disgusted with the 
unwieldiness and lack of royal presence in Louis XVIII. 
His first act was a concession they little expected, and one 
calculated to render him popular. He abridged the 
powers of the censors of the Press. His minister at this 
time was M. de Villele, a man of whom it has been said 
that he had a genius for trifles ; but M. de Villele having 
been defeated on some measures that he brought before 
the Chamber of Deputies, Charles X. was glad to remove 
him, and to appoint as his prime minister his favorite, the 
Prince de Polignac. Charles Greville, who was in Paris 
at the time of this appointment, writes : " Nothing can 
exceed the violence of feeling that prevails. The king does 
nothing but cry ; Polignac is said to have the fatal obsti- 
nacy of a martyr, the worst courage of the ruat coelum 
sort." 

Six months later Greville writes : " Nobody has an idea 
how things will turn out, or what are Polignac's intentions 
or his resources." He appeared calm and well satisfied, 
saying to those who claimed the right to question him, that 
all would be well, though all France and a clear majority 
in the Chambers were against him. " I am told," says 
Charles Greville, " that there is no revolutionary spirit 
abroad, but a strong determination to provide for the 
stability of existing institutions, and disgust at the obsti- 
nacy and the pretensions of the king. It seems also that 
a desire to substitute the Orleans for the reigning branch 




CHARLES X. 



CHARLES X. AND THE DAYS OF JULY. 17 

is becoming very general. It is said that Polignac is 
wholly ignorant of France, and will not listen to the opin- 
ions of those who could enlighten him. It is supposed 
that Charles X. is determined to push matters to ex- 
tremity; to try the Chambers, and if his ministers are 
beaten, to dissolve the House and to govern par ordon- 
nances du roi.'" This prophecy, written in March, 1830, 
foreshadowed exactly what happened in July of the same 
year, when, as an outspoken English Tory told Henry Crabb 
Robinson, in a reading-room at Florence : " The king of 
France has sent the deputies about their business, has 

abolished the d d Constitution and the liberty of the 

Press, and proclaimed his own power as absolute king." 

"And what will the end be?" cried Robinson. 

" It will end," said a Frenchman who was present, •' in 
driving the Bourbons out of France ! " 

During the last months of Charles X.'s reign France 
made an expedidon against the Dey of Algiers, which 
was the first step in the conquest of Algeria. The im- 
mediate object of the expedition, however, was to draw 
off the attention of a disaffected nation from local politics. 
An army of 57,000 soldiers, 103 ships of war, and many 
transports, was despatched to the coast of Barbary. The 
expedition was not very glorious, but it was successful. Te 
Deums were sung in Paris, the general in command was 
made a marshal, and his naval colleague a peer. 

The royalists of France were at this period divided into 
two parties ; the party of the king and Polignac, who were 
governed by the Jesuits, looked for support to the clergy of 
France. The other party looked to the army. Yet the 
most religious men in the country — men like M. de la 
Ferronays, for example — condemned and regretted the 
obstinacy of the king. 

Louis Philippe, the Duke of Orleans, on whom all eyes 
were fixed, was the son of that infamous Duke of Orleans 
who in the Revolution proclaimed himself a republican, took 
the name of Philippe Egalite, and voted for the execution 
of the king, drawing down upon himself the rebuke of the 



1 8 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

next Jacobin whose turn it was to vote in the convention, 
who exclaimed : " I was going to vote Yes, but I vote 
No, that I may not tread in the steps of the man who 
has voted before me." 

EgaUte was in the end a victim. He perished, after 
suffering great poverty, leaving three sons and a daughter. 
The sons were Louis Philippe, who became Duke of Or- 
leans, the Comte de Beaujolais, and the Due de Montpen- 
sier. One of these had shared the imprisonment of his 
father, and narrowly escaped the guillotine. 

Louis Philippe had solicited from the Republic permis- 
sion to serve under Dumouriez in his celebrated cam- 
paign in the Low Countries. He fought with distinguished 
bravery at Valmy and Jemappes as Dumouriez's aide-de- 
camp ; but when that general was forced to desert his army 
and escape for his life, Louis Philippe made his escape too. 
He went into Switzerland, and there taught mathematics in 
a school. Thence he came to America, travelled through 
the United States, and resided for some time at Brooklyn. 

In 1808 be went out to the Mediterranean in an English 
man-of-war in charge of his sick brother, the Comte de 
Beaujolais. The same vessel carried Sir John Moore out 
to his command, and landed him at Lisbon. Louis Phi- 
lippe could not have had a very pleasant voyage, for the 
English admiral, on board whose ship he was a passenger, 
came up one day in a rage upon the quarter-deck, and de- 
clared aloud, in the hearing of his officers, that the Duke of 

Orleans was such a d d repubhcan he could not sit at 

the same table with him.^ 

There used to be stories floating about Paris concerning 
Louis Philippe's birth and parentage, — stories, however, not 
to be believed, and which broke down upon investigation. 
These made him out to be the son of an Italian jailer, ex- 
changed for a little girl who had been born to the Duke of 
Orleans and his wife at a time when it was a great object 
with them to have a son. The little girl grew up in the 

1 My father was present, and often told the story 



CHARLES X. AND THE DAYS OF JULY. 19 

jailer Chiappini's house under the name of Maria Stella 
Petronilla. There is little doubt that she was a changeling, 
but the link is imperfect which would connect her with the 
Duke and Duchess of Orleans. She was ill-treated by the 
jailer's wife, but was very beautiful. Lord Newburgh, an 
English nobleman, saw her and married her. Her son suc- 
ceeded his father as a peer of England. After Lord New- 
burgh's death his widow married a Russian nobleman. 
Chiappini on his death -bed confessed to this lady all he 
knew about her origin, and she persuaded herself that her 
father must have been the Duke of Orleans. She took up 
her residence in the Rue Rivoli, overlooking the gardens 
of the Tuileries, and received some small pension from the 
benevolent royal family of France. She died in 1845. 

But whoever the mother of Louis Philippe may have 
been, she whom he and Madame Adelaide looked up to 
and loved as though she had been their second mother, was 
Madame de GenHs. In her company Louis Philippe wit- 
nessed, with boyish exultation, the destruction of the Bas- 
tile. To her he wrote after the great day when in the 
Champ de Mars the new Constitution was sworn to both by 
king and people : " Oh, my mother ! there are but two 
things that I supremely love, — the new constitution and 
you ! " 

On Christmas Day, 1809, he married at Palermo the 
Princesse Marie Am6he, niece to Marie Antoinette, and 
aunt to the future Duchesse de Berri. 

No breath of scandal ever disturbed the matrimonal hap- 
piness of Louis Philippe and Marie Amelie. They had a 
noble family of five sons and three daughters, all distin- 
guished by their ability and virtues. I shall have to tell 
hereafter how devotion to the interests of his family was 
one cause of Louis Philippe's overthrow. 

In 1 814, when Napoleon abdicated at Fontainebleau, 
Louis Philippe left Palermo, attended only by one servant, 
and made his way to Paris and the home of his family, the 
Palais Royal. He hurried into the house, and in spite of 
the opposition of the concierge, who took him for a mad- 



20 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

man, he rushed to the staircase ; but before he ascended it 
he fell upon his knees, and bursting into tears, kissed the 
first step before him. 

This was probably the most French-hke thing in Louis 
Philippe's career. He was far more Uke an Englishman 
than a Frenchman. Had he been an Enghsh prince, his 
faults would have seemed to his people like virtues. 

Of course the son of Egalit^ could be no favorite with the 
elder Bourbons ; but he soon became the hope of the middle 
classes, and was very intimate with Laffitte the banker, and 
with Lafayette, who, as we have seen, were both impli- 
cated in conspiracies seven years before the Revolution of 
1830. He was for many years not rich, but he and the 
ladies of his house were very charitable. Madame Ade- 
laide, speaking one day to a friend ^ of the reports that were 
circulated concerning her brother's parsimony, said, — 

" People ask what he does with his money. To satisfy them 
it would be necessary to publish the names of honorable friends 
of Hberty who, in consequence of misfortunes, have solicited 
and obtained from him sums of twenty, thirty, forty, and even 
three hundred thousand francs. They forget all the extraordinary 
expenses my brother has had to meet, all the demands he has to 
comply with. Out of his income he has furnished the Palais 
Royal, improved the apanages of the House of Orleans ; and 
yet sooner or later all this property will revert to the nation. 
When we returned to France our inheritance was so encumbered 
that my brother was advised to decline administering on the 
estate ; but to that neither he nor I would consent. For all these 
things people make no allowances. Truly, we know not how to 
act to inspire the confidence which our opinions and our con- 
sciences tell us we fully deserve." 

It is not necessary in a sketch so brief to go minutely 
into pohtics. Prince Polignac and the king dissolved the 
Chambers, having found the deputies unwilling to approve 
their acts, and a few days afterwards the king published his 
own will and pleasure in what were called Les Ordonnances 
du Rot. One of these restricted the liberty of the Press, 

1 M. Appert, chaplain to Queen Marie Amelia. 




LOUIS PHILIPPE. 

{Dlikf of Orlrans.) 



CHARLES X. AND THE DAYS OF JULY. 21 

and was directed against journalism ; another provided new 
rules, by which the ministry might secure a more subser- 
vient Chamber. 

As we have seen, these ordonnances even in foreign coun- 
tries spread dismay. The revolution that ensued was the 
revolution of the great bankers and the business men, — the 
haute bourgeoisie. In general, revolutions are opposed by 
the moneyed classes ; but this was a revolution effected by 
them to save themselves and their property from such an out- 
break as came forty years later, which we call the Commune. 
The working- classes had litde to do with the Revolution of 
1830, except, indeed, to fight for it, nor had they much to 
do with the Revolution of 1848. It was the moneyed men 
of France who saw that the resuscitated principles of the 
old regime had been stretched to their very uttermost all 
over Europe, and that if they did not check them by a 
well-conducted revolution, worse would be sure to come. 

On July 26, 1830, the ordonnances appeared. The 
working-classes seemed to hear of them without emotion ; 
but their effect on all those who had any stake in the 
prosperity of the country was very great. By nightfall 
the agitation had spread in Paris to all classes. King 
Charles X. was at Saint-Cloud, apparently apprehending 
no popular outbreak. No military preparations in case 
of disturbances had been made, though on the morning 
of the 26th the Due d'Angouleme sent word to Marshal 
Marmont to take command of the troops in Paris, ''as 
there might be some windows broken during the day." 

The next morning trouble was begun by the journeymen 
printers, who, as the newspapers on which they worked 
had been prohibited, were sent home from their printing- 
offices. Before long they were joined by others, notably 
by the cadets from the Polytechnic School. Casimir 
Perrier and Laffitte were considered chiefs of the revolu- 
tion. The cry was everywhere " Vive la Charte," — a com- 
pendium that had been drawn up of the franchises and 
privileges of Frenchmen. M. Thiers, then young, coun- 
selled moderation in the emergency. 



22 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

On July 28 the tricolored flag was again unfurled in 
Paris, — those colors dear to Frenchmen, who had long 
hated the white flag, which represented in their eyes despo- 
tism and the rule of the Bourbons ! The National Guard 
(or militia) was called out, and the populace began erect- 
ing barricades. 

It is surprising how rapidly in an emergency a barricade 
can be formed. A carriage or two is overturned, furniture 
is brought out from neighboring houses, a large tree, if 
available, is cut down, and the whole is strengthened with 
paving-stones. By night all Paris had become a field of 
battle. 

In vain Marshal Marmont had sent courier after courier 
to Saint- Cloud, imploring the king and his ministers to do 
something that might allay the fury of the people. No 
answer was returned. The marshal went himself at last, 
and the king, after listening to his representation of the 
state of Paris, said calmly: "Then it is really a revolt?" 
"No, sire," replied Marmont ; "it is not a revolt, but a 
revolution." 

As soon as the idea of ruin broke upon the royal house- 
hold, everything at Saint-Cloud became confusion and de- 
spair. The Duchesse de Berri wanted to take her son, the 
Due de Bordeaux, into Paris, hoping that the people would 
rally round a woman and the young heir to the throne. 
Some implored the king to treat with the insurgents ; some 
to put himself at the head of his troops ; some to sacrifice 
the ordonnances and the most obnoxious of his ministers. 

The Parisian mob by this time had its blood up. It 
fought with any weapons that came to hand. Muskets 
were loaded with type seized in the printing-offices. At 
the H6tel-de-Ville, Laffitte, Lafayette, and other leading 
men opposed to the policy of Charles X. were assembled 
in council. 

The troops at first fought in their king's cause bravely, but 
without enthusiasm. Subsequently the Duke of Wellington 
was asked if he could not have suppressed the revolution 
with the garrison of Paris, which was twenty thousand men. 



CHARLES X. AND THE BAYS OF JULY. 23 

He answered, •' Easily ; but then they must have been 
fighting for a cause they had at heart." 

The fight continued all the night of the 28th, bloody and 
furious. By morning the soldiers were short of ammuni- 
tion. As usual, the Swiss Guard was stanch, but the French 
soldiers faltered. About midday of the 29th two regi- 
ments went over to the insurgents. 

Two peers were at this juncture sent to negotiate with 
the royal family. The ministers, with Polignac at their 
head, went out also to Saint-Cloud. ''Sire," said one of 
the negotiators, " if in an hour the ordonnances are not 
rescinded, there will be neither king nor kingdom." *' Could 
you not offer me two hours?" said the king, sarcastically, 
as he turned to leave the chamber. The envoy, an old 
man, fell on his knees and seized the skirt of the king's 
coat. "Think of the dauphine ! " he cried, imploringly. 
The king seemed moved, but made no answer. 

In Paris, Marmont, whose heart was with the insurgents, 
endeavored nevertheless to do his duty ; but his troops de- 
serted him. On learning this, TallejTand walked up to his 
clock, saying solemnly; "Take notice that on July 29, 
1830, at five minutes past twelve o'clock, the elder branch 
of the Bourbons ceased to reign." 

The Louvre was taken, and the Tuileries. There was no 
general pillage, the insurgents contenting themselves with 
breaking the statues of kings and other signs of royalty. 

One of the most obnoxious persons in Paris was the 
archbishop. The mob fought to the music of " Ca ira," 
with new words ; — 

" C'est I'Archeveque de Paris 
Qui est Jesuite comme Charles Dix. 
Dansons la Carmagnole ; dansons la Carmagnole, 
Et 5a ira ! " 

There were deeds of heroism, deeds of self-sacrifice, 
deeds of loyalty, deeds of cruelty, and deeds of mercy, as 
there always are in Paris in times of revolution. By night- 
fall on the 29th the %hting was over. It only remained 



24 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

to be seen what would be done with the victory. The 
evening before, Laffitte had sent a messenger to Louis 
Phihppe, then residing two miles from Paris, at his Chateau 
de Neuilly, warning him to hold himself in readiness for 
anything that might occur. Lafayette had been made 
governor of Paris, and thus held in his hand the destinies 
of France. Under him served an improvised municipal 
commune. 

- By this time Prince Polignac had been dismissed, and the 
Due de Montemart had been summoned by the king to 
form a more liberal ministry. Everything was in confusion 
in the palace. The weary troops, who had marched to 
the defence of Saint-Cloud when the struggle in Paris be- 
came hopeless, were scattered about the park unfed and 
uncared-for. 

The king, having at last made up his mind to yield, sent 
the envoys who had been despatched to him, back to Paris, 
saying : *' Go, gentlemen, go ; tell the Parisians that the 
king revokes the ordo7inances. But I declare to you that 
I believe this step will be fatal to the interests of France 
and of the monarchy." 

The envoys on reaching Paris were met by the words : 
" Too late ! The throne of Charles X. has already passed 
from him in blood." 

The king, however, confident that after such concessions 
the revolt was at an end, played whist during the evening, 
while the Due d'Angouleme sat looking over a book of 
geography. At midnight, however, both were awakened to 
hear the news from Paris, and then Charles X.'s confidence 
gave way. He summoned his new prime minister and sent 
him on a mission to the capital. The Due d'Angouleme, 
however, who was opposed to any compromise with rebels, 
would not suffer the minister to pass his outposts. The 
Due de Montemart, anxious to execute his mission, walked 
all night round the outskirts of Paris, and entered it at last 
on the side opposite to Saint-Cloud. The city lay in the 
profound silence of the hour before day.-^ 

1 Louis Blanc, Dix Ans. Histoire de trente heures, 1830. 



CHARLES X. AND THE DAYS OF JULY. 25 

The question of who should succeed Charles X. had 
already been debated in Laffitte's chamber. Laffitte de- 
clared himself for Louis Philippe, the Duke of Orleans. 
Some were for the son of Napoleon. Many were for the 
Due de Bordeaux, with Louis Philippe during his minority 
as lieutenant-general of the kingdom. " That might have 
been yesterday," said M. Laffitte, "if the Duchesse de 
Berri, separating her son's cause from that of his grand- 
father, had presented herself in Paris, holding Henri V. in 
one hand, and in the other the tricolor." " The tricolor ! " 
exclaimed the others; "why, they look upon the tricolor 
as the symbol of all crimes ! " " Then what can be done 
for them? " replied Laffitte. 

At this crisis the poet B^ranger threw all his influence 
into the party of the Duke of Orleans, and almost at the 
same moment appeared a placard on all the walls of 
Paris : — 

" Charles X. is deposed. 
A Republic would embroil us with all Europe. 
The Duke of Orleans is devoted to the cause of the Revolution. 
The Duke of Orleans never made war on France. 
The Duke of Orleans fought at Jemappes. 
The Duke of Orleans will be a Citizen-King. 
The Duke of Orleans has worn the tricolor under fire : he 
will wear the tricolor as king." 

Meantime, early on the evening of the 29th, Neuilly had 
been menaced by the troops under the Due d'Angouleme, 
and Madame Adelaide had persuaded her brother to quit 
the place. When M. Thiers and the artist, Ary Scheffer, 
arrived at Neuilly, bearing a request that the Duke of 
Orleans would appear in Paris, Marie Am^lie received them. 
Aunt to the Duchesse de Berri and attached to the reign- 
ing family, she was shocked by the idea that her husband 
and her children might rise upon their fall ; but Madame 
Adelaide exclaimed : " Let the Parisians make my brother 
what they please, — President, Garde National, or Lieuten- 
ant-General, — so long as they do not make him an exile." 

Louis Philippe, who was at Raincy (or supposed to be 



26 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

there, for the envoys ahvays beheved he was behind a 
curtam durmg their interview with his wife and sister), 
having received a message from Madame Adelaide, set out 
soon after for Paris. The resolution of the leaders of the 
Revolution had been taken, but in the Municipal Com- 
mune at the H6tel-de-Ville there was still much excitement. 
There a party desired a republic, and offered to place 
Lafayette at its head. 

At Saint-Cloud the Duchesse de Berri and her son had 
been sent off to the Trianon ; but the king remained behind. 
He referred everything to the dauphin (the Due d'Angou- 
leme) ; the dauphin referred everything to the king. 

The dauphin's temper was imperious, and at this crisis 
it involved him in a personal collision with Marshal Mar- 
mont. In attempting to tear the marshal's sword from 
his side, he cut his fingers. At sight of the royal blood the 
marshal was arrested, and led away as a traitor. The king, 
however, at once released him, with apologies. 

When the leaders in Paris had decided to offer the 
lieutenant-generalship of France to Louis Phihppe during 
the minority of the Due de Bordeaux, he could not be 
found. He was not at Raincy, he was not at Neuilly. 
About midnight, July 29, he entered Paris on foot and in 
plain clothes, having clambered over the barricades. He 
at once made his way to his own residence, the Palais 
Royal, and there waited events. 

At the same moment the Duchesse de Berri was leaving 
Saint- Cloud with her son. Before daylight Charles X. 
followed them to the Trianon; and the soldiers in the 
Park at Saint-Cloud, who for twenty-four hours had eaten 
nothing, were breaking their fast on dainties brought out 
from the royal kitchen. 

The proposal that Louis PhiUppe should accept the 
lieutenant-generalship was brought to him on the morn- 
ing of July 30, after the proposition had first been sub- 
mitted to Talleyrand, who said briefly : " Let him accept 
it." Louis Philippe did so, accepting at the same time the 
tricolor, and promising a charter which should guarantee 



CHARLES X. AND THE DAYS OF JULY. 27 

parliamentary privileges. He soon after appeared at a 
window of the H6tel-de-Ville, attended by Lafayette and 
Laffitte, bearing the tricolored flag between them, and was 
received with acclamations by the people. But there were 
men in Paris who still desired a republic, with Lafayette 
at its head. Lafayette persisted in assuring them that 
what F'rance wanted was a king surrounded by republican 
institutions, and he commended Louis Philippe to them as 
"■ the best of republics." This idea in a few hours rapidly 
gained ground. 

By midday on July 30th Paris was resuming its usual 
aspect. Charles X., finding that the household troops were 
no longer to be depended on, determined to retreat over 
the frontier, and left the Trianon for the small palace of 
Rambouillet, where Marie Louise and the King of Rome 
had sought refuge in the first hours of their adversity. 

The king reached Rambouillet in advance of the news 
from Paris,^ and great was the surprise of the guardian of 
the Chateau to see him drive up in a carriage and pair with 
only one servant to attend him. The king pushed past the 
keeper of the palace, who was walking slowly backward 
before him, and turned abruptly into a small room on the 
ground floor, where he locked himself in and remained for 
many hours. When he came forth, his figure seemed to 
have shrunk, his complexion was gray, his eyes were red 
and swollen. He had spent his time in burning up old 
love-letters, — reminiscences of a lady to whom he had been 
deeply attached in his youth. 

The mob of Paris having ascertained that the fugitive 
royal family were pausing at Rambouillet, about twelve 
miles from the capital, set out to see what mischief could 
be done in that direction. The Duchesse de Berri, her 
children, and the Due d'Angouleme were at the Chateau de 
Maintenon, and the king, upon the approach of the mob, 
composed only of roughs, determined to join them. As he 
passed out of the chateau, which he had used as a hunting- 

1 All the Year Round, 1885. 



28 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

lodge, he stretched out his hand with a gesture of despair 
to grasp those of some friends who had followed him to 
Rambouillet, and who were waiting for his orders. He 
had none to give them. He spoke no word of advice, but 
walked down the steps to his carriage, and was driven to 
the Chateau de Maintenon to rejoin his family. 

The mob, when it found that the king had fled, was per- 
suaded to quit Rambouillet by having some of the most 
brutal among them put into the king's coaches. Attended by 
the rest of the unruly crowd, they were driven back to Paris, 
and assembling before the Palais Royal, shouted to Louis 
Philippe : '' We have brought you your coaches. Come 
out and receive them ! " Eighteen years later, these 
coaches were consumed in a bonfire in the Place du 
Carrousel. 

At the Chateau de Maintenon all was confusion and dis- 
couragement, when suddenly the dauphine (the Duchesse 
d'Angouleme) arrived. She, whom Napoleon had said was 
the only man of her family, was in Burgundy when she re- 
ceived news of the outbreak of the Revolution. At once she 
crossed several provinces of France in disguise. Harsh of 
voice, stern of look, cold in her bearing, she was neverthe- 
less a favorite with the household troops whose spirit was 
reanimated by the sight of her. 

From Rambouillet the king had sent his approbation of 
the appointment of the Duke of Orleans as lieutenant- 
general during the minority of Henri V. Louis Philippe's 
answer to this communication so well satisfied the old 
king that he persuaded the dauphin to join with him 
in abdicating all rights in favor of Henri V., the little 
Due de Bordeaux. Up to this moment Charles seems never 
to have suspected that more than such an abdication could 
be required of him. But by this time it was evident that 
the successful Parisians would be satisfied with nothing less 
than the utter overthrow of the Bourbons. Their choice 
lay between a constitutional monarchy with Louis Phi- 
lippe at its head, or a renewal of the attempt to form a 
republic. 



CHARLES X. AND THE DAYS OF JULY. 29 

The populace, on hearing that the abdication of the king 
and of the dauphin had been announced to the Chamber of 
Deputies, assembled to the number of sixty thousand, and 
insisted on the trial and imprisonment of the late king. 
Hearing this, the royal family left the Chateau de Main- 
tenon the next morning, the king and the Duchesse d'An- 
gouleme taking leave of their faithful troops, and desiring 
them to return to Paris, there to make their submission 
to the lieutenant-general, " who had taken all measures for 
their security and prosperity in the future." 

During the journey to Dreux, Charles X. appeared to 
those around him to accept his misfortunes from the hand 
of Heaven. The Duchesse d'Angouleme, pale and self- 
contained, with all her wounds opened afresh, could hardly 
*bring herself to quit France for the third time. Her hus- 
band was stolid and stupid. The Duchesse de Berri was 
almost gay. 

Meantime old stories were being circulated throughout 
France discrediting the legitimacy of the Due de Bordeaux, 
the posthumous son of the Due de Berri. He had been 
born seven months after his father's death, at dead of night, 
with no doctor in attendance, nor any responsible witnesses 
to attest that he was heir to the crown. Louis Phihppe had 
protested against his legitimacy within a week after his birth. 
There was no real reason for suspecting his parentage ; no- 
body believes the slander now, but it is not surprising that in 
times of such excitement, with such great interests at stake, 
the circumstances attending his birth should have provoked 
remark. They were both unfortunate and unusual. 

Charles X. was the calmest person in the whole royal 
party. He was chiefly concerned for the comfort of the 
rest. The dauphine wept, her husband trembled, the chil- 
dren were full of excitement and eager for play. Charles 
was unmoved, resigned ; only the sight of a tricolored flag 
overcame him. 

He complained much of the haste with which he was es- 
corted through France to Cherbourg ; but that haste proba- 
bly insured his safety. At Cherbourg two ships awaited 



30 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

him, — the "Great Britain" and the "Charles Carroll;" 
both were American-built, and both had formed part of the 
navy of Napoleon. 

The day was fine when the royal fugitives embarked. In 
a few hours they were off the Isle of Wight. For several 
days they stayed on board, waiting till the English Govern- 
ment should complete arrangements which would enable 
them to land. They had come away almost without clothes, 
and the Duchesses of Angouleme and Berri were indebted 
for an outfit to an ex- ambassadress. The king said to 
some of those who came on board to see him, that he and 
his son had retired into private life, and that his grand- 
son must wait the progress of events ; also, that his con- 
science reproached him with nothing in his conduct towards 
his people. 

After a few days the party landed in England and took 
up their abode at Ludworth Castle. Afterwards, at the 
king's own request, the old Palace of Holyrood, in Edin- 
burgh, was assigned him. There was some fear at the 
time lest popular feeling should break out in some insult to 
him or his family. To avert this. Sir Walter Scott, though 
then in failing heahh, wrote in a leading Edinburgh news- 
paper as follows : — 

" We are enabled to announce from authority that Charles of 
Bourbon, the ex-king of France, is about to become once more 
our fellow-citizen, though probably only for a limited space, and 
is presently about to inhabit the apartments again that he so 
long occupied in Holyrood House. This temporary arrange- 
ment has been made, it is said, in compHance with his own 
request, with which our benevolent monarch immediately com- 
plied, willing to consult in every way possible the feelings of a 
prince under pressure of misfortunes, which are perhaps the 
more severe if incurred through bad advice, error, or rashness. 
The attendants of the late sovereign will be reduced to the least 
possible number, and consist chiefly of ladies and children, and 
his style of life will be strictly retired. In these circumstances 
it would be unworthy of us as Scotchmen, or as men, if this un- 
fortunate family should meet with a word or a look from the 
meanest individual tending to aggravate feelings which must be 
at present so acute as to receive injury from insults, which in 



CHARLES X. AND THE DAYS OF JULY. 3 1 

other times would be passed over with perfect disregard. His 
late opponents in his kingdom have gained the applause of 
Europe for the generosity with which they have used their vic- 
tory, and the respect which they have paid to themselves in 
their moderation towards an enemy. It would be a great con- 
trast to that part of their conduct which has been most gener- 
ally applauded, were we, who are strangers to the strife, to affect 
a deeper resentment than those concerned more closely. Those 
who can recollect the former residence of this unhappy prince in 
our Northern capital cannot but remember the unobtrusive, quiet 
manner in which his little court was then conducted, and now, 
still further restricted and diminished, he may naturally expect 
to be received with civility and respect by a nation whose good 
will he has done nothing to forfeit. Whatever may have been 
his errors towards his own subjects, we cannot but remember in 
his adversity that he did not in his prosperity forget that Edin- 
burgh had extended him her hospitality, but that at the period 
when the fires consumed so much of our city, he sent a princely 
benefaction to the sufferers. ... If there be any who entertain 
angry or invidious recollections of late events in France, they 
ought to remark that the ex-monarch has by his abdication re- 
nounced the conflict, into which perhaps he was engaged by 
bad advice, that he can no longer be an object of resentment to 
the brave, but remains, to all, the most striking example of the 
instability of human affairs which our unstable times have 
afforded.' He may say, with our own deposed Richard, — 

* With mine own hands I washed away my blame ; 
With mine own hands I gave away my crown ; 
With my own tongue deny my sacred state.' 

" He brings among us his ' gray, discrowned head,' and in a 
'nation of gentlemen,' as we were emphatically termed by the 
very highest authority, it is impossible, I trust, to find a man 
mean enough to insult the shghtest hair of it." 

Charles X. was greatly indebted to this letter for the cor- 
diality of his reception at Edinburgh, where he lived in dig- 
nified retirement for about two years ; then, finding that the 
climate was too cold for his old age, and that the English 
Government was disquieted because of the attempts of the 
Duchesse de Berri to revive her son's claims to the French 
throne, he made his way to Bohemia, and lived for a while 
in the Castle of Prague. At last he decided to make his 



32 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

final residence in the Tyrol, not far from the warm climate 
of Italy. It is said that as the exiled, aged king cast a last 
look at the Gothic towers of the Castle of Prague, he said to 
those about him : " We are leaving yonder walls, and know 
not to what we may be going, like the patriarchs who knew 
not as they journeyed where they would pitch their tents." ^ 
On reaching the Baths of Toplitz, where the waters 
seemed to agree with him, and where he wished to rest 
awhile, he found it needful to " move on," for the house he 
occupied had been engaged for the king of Prussia. The 
cholera, too, was advancing. The exiled party reached 
Budweiz, a mountain village with a rustic inn, and there it 
was forced to halt for some weeks, for the Due de Bordeaux 
was taken ill with cholera. It was a period of deep anxiety 
to those about him, but at last he recovered. 

After trying several residences in the Tyrolese mountains, 
to which the old king had gone largely in hopes that he 
might enjoy the pleasures of the chase, the exiled family 
fixed its residence at Goritz towards the end of October, 
1836. The king was then in his eightieth year, but so hale 
and active that he spent whole mornings on foot, with his 
gun, upon the mountains. 

The weather changed soon after the family had settled at 
Goritz. The keen winter winds blew down from the snow 
mountains, but the king did not give up his daily sport. 
One afternoon, after a cold morning spent upon the hills, he 
was seized at evening service in the chapel with violent 
spasms. These passed off, but on his joining his family 
later, its members were struck by the change in his appear- 
ance. In a few hours he seemed to have aged years. At 
night he grew so ill that extreme unction was administered 
to him. It was an attack of cholera. When dying, he 
blessed his little grandchildren, the boy and girl, who, not- 
withstanding the nature of his illness, were brought to him. 
"God preserve you, dear children," he said. "Walk in 
paths of righteousness. Don't forget me. . . . Pray for 
me som.etimes." 

1 Memoirs of the Duchesse d'Angouleme. 



CHARLES X. AND THE DAYS OF JULY. 33 

He died Nov. 6, 1836, just one week after Louis Napo- 
leon made his first attempt to have himself proclaimed 
Emperor of the French, at Strasburg. 

He was buried near Goritz, in a chapel belonging to the 
Capuchin Friars. In another chapel belonging to the same 
iowly order in Vienna, had been buried four years before, 
another claimant to the French throne, the Due de Reich- 
stadt, the only son of Napoleon. 

On the coffin of the ex-king was inscribed, — 

" Here lieth the High, the Potent, and most Excellent Prince, 
Charles Tenth of that name, by the Grace of God King of 
France and of Navarre. Died at Goritz, Nov. 6, 1836, aged 
79 years and 28 days." 

All the courts of Europe put on mourning for him, that 
of France excepted. The latter part of his life, with its re- 
verses and humiliations, he considered an expiation, not for 
his political errors, but for the sins of his youth. 

As he drew near his end, his yearnings after his lost coun- 
try increased more and more. He firmly believed that the 
day would come when his family would be restored to the 
throne of France, but he believed that it would not be by 
conspiracy or revolt, but by the direct interposition of God. 
That time did almost come in 1871, after the Commune. 



CHAPTER II. 

LOUIS PHILIPPE AND HIS FAMILY. 

LOUIS PHILIPPE, after accepting the lieutenant- gener- 
alship of the kingdom, which would have made him 
regent under Henri V., found himself raised by the will 
of the people — or rather, as some said, by the will of the 
boic7'geoisie — to the French throne. He reigned, not by 
'^ right divine," but as the chosen ruler of his countrymen, — 
to mark which distinction he took the tide of King of the 
French, instead of King of France, which had been borne 
by his predecessors. 

It is hardly necessary for us to enter largely into French 
politics at this period. The government was supposed to 
be a monarchy planted upon republican institutions. The 
law recognized no hereditary aristocracy. There was a 
chamber of peers, but the peers bore no titles, and were 
chosen only for life. The dukes, marquises, and counts 
of the old regime retained their titles only by courtesy. 

The ministers of Charles X. were arrested and tried. 
The new king was very anxious to secure their personal 
safety, and did so at a considerable loss of his own popu- 
larity. They were condemned to lose all property and all 
privileges, and were sent to the strong fortress of Ham. 
After a few years they were released, and took refuge in 
England. 

There were riots in Paris when it was known that the 
ministers and ill-advisers of the late king were not to be 
executed; one of the leaders in these disturbances was 
an Italian bravo named Fieschi, — a man base, cruel, and 
bold, whom Louis Blanc calls a scelerat bel esprit. 



LOUIS PHILIPPE AND HIS FAMILY. 35 

The emeiite, which was formidable, was suppressed chiefly 
by a gallant action on the part of the king, who, while 
his health was unimpaired, was never wanting in bravery. 
"The king of the French," says Greville, "has put an 
end to the disturbances in Paris about the sentence of 
the ministers by an act of personal gallantry. At night, 
when the streets were most crowded and agitated, he 
salhed from the Palais Royal on horseback, with his son, 
the Due de Nemours, and his personal cortege^ and paraded 
through Paris for two hours. That did the business. He 
was received with shouts of applause, and at once reduced 
everything to tranquillity. He deserves his throne for this, 
and will probably keep it." 

The next trouble in the new reign was the alienation of 
public favor from Lafayette, who had done so much to 
place the king upon the throne. He was accused by one 
party of truckling to the new court, by the other of being 
too much attached to revolutionary methods and republican 
institutions. He was removed from the command of the 
National Guard, and his office of commander-in-chief of 
that body was abolished. 

All Europe becomes " a troubled sea " when a storm breaks 
over France. " I never remember," writes Greville at this 
period, " days like these, nor read of such, — the terror and 
lively expectation that prevails, and the way in which peo- 
ple's minds are turned backward and forward from France 
to Ireland, then range exclusively from Poland to Piedmont, 
and fix again on the burnings, riots, and executions that are 
going on in England." 

Meantime France was subsiding into quiet, with occa- 
sional shght shocks of revolutionary earthquake, before re- 
turning to order and peace. The king was le bon bourgeois. 
He had lived a great deal in England and the United States, 
and spoke English well. He had even said in his early 
youth that he was more of an Englishman than a French - 
m.an. He was short and stout. His head was shaped 
like a pear, and was surmounted by an elaborate brown wig ; 
for in those days people rarely wore their own gray hair. 



36 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, 

He did not impress those who saw him as being in any 
way majestic ; indeed, he looked Uke what he was, — le Bon 
pere de famille. As such he would have suited the people 
of England ; but it was un vert galant like Henri IV., or 
royalty incarnate, like Louis XIV., who would have fired 
the imagination of the French people. As a good father 
of a family, Louis Philippe felt that his first duty to his chil- 
dren was to secure them a good education, good marriages, 
and sufficient wealth to make them important personages in 
any sudden change of fortune. 

At the time of his accession all his children were un- 
married, — indeed, only four of them were grown up. The 
sons all went to college, — which means in France what 
high-school does with us. Their mother's dressing-room 
at Neuilly was hung round with the laurel-crowns, dried 
and framed, which had been won by her dear school- 
boys. 

The eldest son, Ferdinand, Duke of Orleans, was an 
extraordinarily fine young man, far more a favorite with 
the French people than his father. Llad he not been 
killed in a carriage accident in 1842, he might now, in 
his old age, have been seated on the French throne. 

One of the first objects of the king was to secure for 
his heir a suitable marriage. A Russian princess was first 
thought of; but the Czar would not hear of such a mes- 
alllance. Then the hand of an Austrian archduchess was 
sought, and the young lady showed herself well pleased 
with the attentions of so handsome and accomplished a 
suitor ; but her family were as unfavorable to the match 
as was the Czar of Russia. Finally, the Duke of Orleans 
had to content himself with a German Protestant princess, 
Helene of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, a woman above all praise, 
who bore him two sons, — the Comte de Paris, born in 
1838, and the Due de Chartres, born a year or two later. 

The eldest daughter of Louis Philippe, the Princess 
Louise, was married, soon after her father's elevation to 
the throne, to King Leopold of Belgium, widower of the 
English Princess Charlotte, and uncle to Prince Albert and 



LOUIS PHILIPPE AND HIS FAMILY. 



37 



to Queen Victoria. The French princess thus became, 
by her marriage, aunt to these high personages. They 
were deeply attached to her. She named her eldest 
daughter Charlotte, after the lamented first wife of her 
husband. The name was Italianized into Carlotta, — the 
poor Carlotta whose reason and happiness were destroyed 
by the misfortunes of her husband in Mexico. 

The second son of Louis Philippe was the Due de Nemours, 
— a blo7id, stiff young officer who was never a favorite with 
the French, though he distinguished himself in Algeria as 
a soldier. He too found it hard to satisfy his father's 
ambition by a brilliant marriage, though a throne was 
offered him, which he had to refuse. Fie then aspired 
to the hand of Maria da Gloria, the queen of Portugal ; 
but he married eventually a pretty little German princess 
of the Coburg race. 

The third son was Philippe, Prince de Joinville, the sailor. 
He chose a bride for himself at the court of Brazil, and 
brought her home in his frigate, the '^ Belle Poule." 

The charming artist daughter of Louis Philippe, the 
Princess Marie, pupil and friend of Ary Scheffer, the artist, 
married the Duke of Wiirtemberg, and died early of con- 
sumption. Her only child was sent to France, and placed 
under the care of his grandmother. Princess Clementine 
married a colonel in the Austrian service, a prince of the 
Catholic branch of the house of Coburg. Her son is 
Prince Ferdinand, the present ruler of Bulgaria. 

The marriage of Louis Philippe's fifth son, the Due de 
Montpensier, with the Infanta Luisa is so closely connected 
with Louis Philippe's downfall that it can be better told 
elsewhere ; but we may here say a few words about the 
fortunes of Henri, Due d'Aumale, the king's fourth son, 
who has proved himself a man brave, generous, patriotic, 
and high-minded, a soldier, a statesman, an historian, a 
patron of art, and in all these things a man eminent among 
his fellows. He was only a school-boy when a tragic and 
discreditable event made him heir of the great house of 
Conde, and endowed him with wealth that he refuses to 



38 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

pass on to his family, proposing at his death to present 
it to the French people and the French Academy. 

The royal family of the house of Bourbon was divided 
in France into three branches, — the reigning branch, the 
head of which was Charles X. ; the Orleans branch, the 
head of which was Louis Philippe ; and the Conde branch, 
the chief of which, ^nd its sole representative at this period, 
was the aged Duke of Bourbon, whose only son, the Prince 
d'Enghien, had been shot by order of Napoleon. 

This old man, rich, childless, and miserable, had had a 
romantic history. When very young he had fallen violently 
in love with his cousin, the Princess Louise of Orleans. He 
was permitted to marry her, but only on condition that 
they should part at the church door, — she to enter a convent 
for two years, he to serve for the same time in the French 
army. They were married with all pomp and ceremony ; 
but that night the ardent bridegroom scaled the walls of 
the convent and bore away his bride. Unhappily their 
mutual attachment did not last long. " It went out," says a 
contemporary memoir-writer, '' like a fire of straw." ^ At 
last hatred took the place of love, and the quarrels be- 
tween the Prince de Conde (as the Due de Bourbon was 
then called) and his wife were among the scandals of the 
court of Louis XVI., and helped to bring odium on the 
royal family. 

The only child of this marriage was the Due d'Enghien. 
The princess died in the early days of the Revolution. Her 
husband formed the army of French e?jiigres at Coblentz, 
and led them when they invaded their own country. On 
the death of his father he became Duke of Bourbon, but 
his promising son, D'Enghien, was already dead. The duke 
married while in exile the princess of Monaco, a lady ofi 
very shady antecedents. She was, however, received by 
Louis XVIII. in his little court at Hartwell. She died 
soon after the Restoration. 

In 1830 the old duke, worn out with sorrows and excesses, 

1 Madame d'Oberkirch. 



LOUIS PHILIPPE AND HIS FAMILY. 39 

was completely under the power of an English adventuress, 
a Madame de Feucheres.^ He had settled on her his 
Chateau de Saint-Leu, together with very large sums of 
money. Several years before 1830 it had occurred to 
Madame de Feucheres that the De Rohans, who were related 
to the duke on his mother's side, might dispute these gifts 
and bequests, and by way of making herself secure, she 
sought the protection of Louis Philippe, then Duke of Or- 
leans. She offered to use her influence with the Duke of 
Bourbon to induce him to make the Due d'Aumale, who 
was his godson, his heir, if Louis Philippe would engage to 
stand her friend in any trouble. 

The relations of the Due de Bourbon to this woman 
bore a strong resemblance to those that Thackeray has de- 
picted between Becky Sharp and Jos Sedley. The old 
man became thoroughly in fear of her ; and when the Revo- 
lution broke out later, he was also much afraid of being plun- 
dered and maltreated at Saint- Leu by the populace, — not, 
however, because he had any great regard for his cousin 
Charles X., with whom in his youth he had fought a cele- 
brated duel. Impelled by these two fears, he resolved to es- 
cape secretly from France, and so rid himself of the tyranny 
of Madame de Feucheres and the dangers of Revolution. 

He arranged his flight with a trusted friend ; it was fixed 
for the day succeeding Aug. 31, 1830, — a month after 
the Revolution. That eveniing he retired to his chamber 
in good spirits, though he said good-night more impress- 
ively than usual to some persons in his household. The 
next morning he was found dead, hanging to one of the 
espagnolettes, or heavy fastenings, of a tall French window. 
The village authorities were summoned ; but although it was 
impossible a man so infirm could have thus killed himself, 
and though many other circumstances proved that he did 
not die by his own hand, they certified his death by suicide. 
The Catholic Church, however, did not accept this verdict, 
and the duke was buried with the rites of religion. 

^ Louis Blanc. 



40 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

There was certainly no proof that Madame de Feucheres 
had had any hand m the murder of the old man who had 
plotted to escape from her, and who had expressed to others 
his dread of the tyranny she exercised over him ; but there 
was every ground for strong suspicion, and the public lost no 
time in fastening part of the odium that attached to the 
supposed murderess on the king, whose family had so 
greatly benefited by her influence over the last head of the 
house of Conde. She retained her ill-gotten wealth, and 
removed at once to Paris. She had been engaged in stock 
operations for some time, and now gave herself up to them, 
winning enormous sums. 

The new throne was sadly shaken by these events, added 
to discontents concerning the king's prudent policy of non- 
intervention in the attempted revolutions of other countries, 
which followed that of France in 1830 and 1831. The 
next very interesting event of this reign was the escapade 
and the discomfiture of the young Duchesse de Berri. 

About the close of 1832, while France and all Europe 
were still experiencing the after-shocks which followed the 
Revolution of July, Marie Caroline, the Duchesse de Berri, 
planned at Holyrood a descent upon France in the interests 
of the Due de Bordeaux, her son.^ Had he reigned in 
consequence of the deaths of his grandfather and uncle, 
Charles X. and the Due d'Angouleme, the duchess his 
mother was to have been regent during his minority. She 
regretted her inaction during the days of July, when, had 
she taken her son by the hand and presented him her- 
self to the people, renouncing in his name and her own all 
ultra-Bourbon traditions and ideas, she might have saved 
the dynasty. 

Under the influence of this regret, and fired by the idea 
of becoming another Jeanne d'Albret, she urged her plans 
on Charles X., who decidedly disapproved of them ; but 
" the idea of crossing the seas at the head of faithful pal- 
adins, of landing after the perils and adventures of an un- 

1 Louis Blanc and papers in *' Figaro." 




iriiijter,miiiiii»aiiiM 




HTlTWMWIfUl: 



PTTl 



LOUIS PHILIPPE AND HIS FAMILY. 41 

premeditated voyage in a country of knights- errant, of 
eluding by a thousand disguises the vigilance of enemies 
through whom she had to pass, of wandering, a devoted 
mother and a banished queen, from hamlet to hamlet and 
from chateau to chateau, appealing to human nature high 
and low on its romantic side, and at the end of a victorious 
conspiracy unfurling in France the ancient standard of the 
monarchy, was too dazzling not to attract a young, high- 
spirited woman, bold through her very ignorance, heroic 
through mere levity, able to endure anything but depression 
and ennui, and prepared to overbear all opposition with 
plausible platitudes about a mother's love." ^ 

At last Charles X. consented to let her follow her own 
wishes ; but he placed her under the guardianship of the 
Due de Blancas. She set out through Holland and the 
Tyrol for Italy. She travelled incognita, of course. Charles 
Albert, of Sardinia, received her at Turin with great per- 
sonal kindness, and lent her a million of francs, — which he 
borrowed from a nobleman of his court under pretence of 
paying the debts of his early manhood ; but he was forced 
to request her to leave his dominions, and she took refuge 
with the Duke of Modena, who assigned her a palace at 
Massa, about three miles from the Mediterranean. A rising 
was to be made simultaneously in Southern France and in 
La Vendue. Lyons had just been agitated by a labor in- 
surrection, and Marseilles was the first point at which it 
was intended to strike. 

The Legitimists in France were divided into two parties. 
One, under Chateaubriand and Marshal Victor, the Due de 
Bellune, wished to restore Henri V. only by parliamentary 
and legal victories ; the other, favored by the court at 
Holyrood, was for an armed intervention of the Great 
Powers. The Due de Blancas was considered its head. 

The question of the invasion of France with foreign troops 
was excitedly argued at Massa. The duchess wished above 
all things to get rid of the tutelage of M. de Blancas, and 

1 Louis Blanc, Histoire de Dix Ans. 



42 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

she was disposed to favor, to a certain extent, the more 
moderate views of Chateaubriand. After endless quarrels 
she succeeded in sending off the duke to Holyrood, and 
was left to take her own way. 

April 14, 1832, was fixed upon for leaving Massa. It 
was given out that the duchess, was going to Florence. At 
nightfall a carriage, containing the duchess, with two ladies 
and a gentleman of her suite, drove out of Massa and 
waited under the shadow of the city wall. While a footman 
was absorbing the attention of the coachman by giving him 
some minute, unnecessary orders, Madame (as they called 
the duchess) slipped out of the carriage door with one of 
her ladies, while two others, who were standing ready in 
the darkness, took their places. The carriage rolled away to- 
wards Florence, while Madame and her party, stealing along 
under the dark shadow of the city wall, made their way to 
the port, where a steamer was to take them on board. 

That steamer was the "Carlo Alberto," a little vessel 
which had been already used by some republican conspira- 
tors, and had been purchased for the service of Marie 
Caroline. It had some of her most devoted adherents on 
board, but the captain was in ignorance. He thought 
himself bound for Genoa, and was inclined to disobey 
when his passengers ordered him to lay to off the harbor 
of Massa. However, they used force, and at three in the 
morning Marie Caroline, who was sleeping, wrapped in her 
cloak, upon the sand, was roused, put on board a little 
boat, and carried oat to the steamer. She had a tempes- 
tuous passage of four days to Marseilles. The steamer ran 
out of coal, and had to put into Nice. At last, in a heavy 
sea which threatened to dash small craft to pieces, a fish- 
ing-boat approached the " Carlo Alberto," containing some 
of the duchess's most devoted friends. With great danger 
she was transferred to it, and was landed on the French 
coast. She scrambled up slippery and precipitous rocks, 
and reached a place of safety. But the delay in the arrival 
of her steamer had been fatal to her enterprise. A French 
gentleman in the secret had hired a small boat, and put 



LOUIS PHILIPPE AND HIS FAMILY. 43 

out to sea in the storm to see if he could perceive the miss- 
ing vessel. His conduct excited the suspicion of his crew, 
who talked about it at a wine-shop, where they met other 
sailors, who had their story to tell of a lady landed mysteri- 
ously a few hours before at a dangerous and lonely spot 
a few miles away. The two accounts soon reached the 
ears of the police, and Marseilles was on the alert, when 
a party of young men, with their swords drawn and waving 
white handkerchiefs, precipitated their enterprise, by ap- 
pearing in the streets and striving to rouse the populace. 
They were arrested, as were also the passengers left on 
board the " Carlo Alberto," — among them was a lady who 
deceived the police into a belief that she was the Duchesse 
de Berri. 

Under cover of this mistake the duchess, finding that all 
hope was over in the southern provinces, resolved to cross 
France to La Vendue. At Massa she had had a dream. 
She thought the Due de Berri had appeared to her and 
said : " You will not succeed in the South, but you will 
prosper in La Vendue." 

She quitted the hut in which she had been concealed, 
made her way on foot through a forest, lost herself, and 
had to sleep in the vacant cabin of a woodcutter. The 
next night she passed under the roof of a republican, who 
respected her sex and would not betray her. She then 
reached the chateau of a Legitimist nobleman with the 
appropriate name of M. de Bonrecueil. Thence she started 
in the morning in a postchaise to cross all France along 
its public roads. 

She accomplished her journey in safety, and fixed May 
24, 1832, as the day for taking up arms. She made her 
headquarters at a Breton farm-house, Les Meliers. She 
wore the costume of a boy, — a peasant of La Vendee, — 
and called herself Petit Pierre. 

On May 21, three days before the date fixed upon for 
the rising, she was waited upon by the chiefs, — the men 
most likely to suffer in an abortive insurrection, — and was 
assured that the attempt would fail. Had the South risen. 



44 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

La Vendee would have gladly joined the insurrection ; but 
unsupported by the South, the proposed enterprise was too 
rash a venture. Overpowered by these arguments and the 
persuasions of those around her, Marie Caroline gave way, 
and consented to return to Scotland with a passport that 
had been provided for her. But in the night she re- 
tracted her consent, and insisted that the rising should 
take place upon the 3d of June. She was obeyed ; but 
what httle prospect of success there might have been at 
first, was destroyed by the counter-order of May 22. All 
who rose were at once put down by the king's troops, and 
atrocities on both sides were committed. 

Nantes, the capital city of La Vendee, was hostile to the 
duchess ; in Nantes, therefore, she beUeved her enemies 
would never search for her. She took refuge there in the 
house of two elderly maiden ladies, the Demoiselles Du- 
guigney, where she remained five months. They must 
have been months of anguish to her, and of unspeakable 
impatience. It is very possible that the Government did 
not care to find her. She was the queen's niece, and if 
captured what could be done with her? To set her free to 
hatch new plots would have been bitterly condemned by 
the repubhcans ; to imprison her would have made an 
additional motive for royalist conspiracies ; to execute her 
would have been impossible. Marie Caroline, however, had 
solved these difficult problems by her own misconduct. 

Meantime the premiership of France passed into the 
hands of M. Thiers. A Jew — a Judas — named Deutz, 
came to him mysteriously, and bargained to deliver into 
his hands the Duchesse de Berri. Thiers, who had none 
of the pity felt for her by the Orleans family, closed 
with the offer. Some years before, Deutz had renounced 
his Jewish faith and pretended to turn Christian. Pope 
Gregory XVL had patronized him, and had recommended 
him to the Due de Berri as a confidential messenger. He 
had frequently carried despatches of importance, and knew 
that the duchess was in Nantes, but he did not know her 
hiding-place. He contrived to persuade her to grant him 



LOUIS PHILIPPE AND HIS FAMILY. 45 

an interview. It took place at the Demoiselles Duguigney's 
house ; but he was led to believe that she only used their 
residence for that purpose. With great difficulty he pro- 
cured a second interview, in the course of which, having 
taken his measures beforehand, soldiers surrounded the 
house. Before they could enter it, word was brought to 
the duchess that she was betrayed. She fled from the 
room, and when the soldiers entered they could not find 
her. They were certain that she had not left the house. 
They broke everything to pieces, sounded the walls, ripped 
up the beds and furniture. Night came on, and troops 
were left in every chamber. In a large garret, where there 
was a w^de fireplace, the soldiers collected some newspapers 
and light wood, and about midnight built a fire. Soon 
within the chimney a noise of kicking against an iron 
panel was heard, and voices cried : " Let us out, — we 
surrender ! " 

For sixteen hours the duchess and two friends had been 
imprisoned in a tiny hiding-place, separated from the hearth 
by a thin iron sliding-panel, which, when the soldiers lit 
their fire, had grown red hot. The gentleman of the party 
was already badly burned, and the women were nearly suffo- 
cated. The gendarmes kicked away the fire, the panel 
was pushed back, and the duchess, pale and fainting, came 
forth and surrendered. The commander of the troops was 
sent for. To him she said : " General, I confide myself to 
your honor." He answered, '^ Madame, you are under the 
safeguard of the honor of France." 

This capture was a great embarrassment to the Govern- 
ment. Pity for the devoted mother, the persecuted prin- 
cess, the brave, self-sacrificing woman, stirred thousands of 
hearts. The duchess was sent at once to an old chateau 
called Blaye, on the banks of the Gironde, the estuary 
formed by the junction of the Dordogne and the Garonne. 
Tradition said that the old castle had been built by the 
paladin Orlando (or Roland) , and that he had been buried 
within its walls after he fell at Roncesvalles. 



46 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

In this citadel the Duchesse de Berri was confined, with 
every precaution against escape or rescue ; and the re- 
straint and monotony of such a life soon told upon a 
woman of her character. She could play the heroine, 
acting well her part, with an admiring world for her au- 
dience ; but ^'cabined, cribbed, confined" in an old, 
dilapidated castle, her courage and her health gave way. 
She was cheered, however, at first by Legitimist testimonies 
of devotion. Chateaubriand wrote her a memorable letter, 
imploring her, in the name of M. de Malesherbes, his 
ancestor who had defended Louis XVI., to let him under- 
take her defence, if she were brought to trial ; but the 
reigning family of France had no wish to proceed to such 
an extremity. The duchess had not come of a stock 
in which all the women were sans repj'-oche, like Marie 
Amelie. Her grandmother, Queen Caroline of Naples, 
the friend of Lady Hamilton and of Lord Nelson, had 
been notoriously a bad woman ; her sister, Queen Christina 
of Spain, had made herself equally famous ; and doubts 
had already been thrown on the legitimacy of the son 
of the duchess, the posthumous child of the Due de 
Berri. The queen of France, who was almost a saint, 
had been fond of her young relative for her many engaging 
qualities ; and what to do with her, in justice to France, 
was a difficult problem. 

To the consternation and disgust of the Legitimists, the 
heroine of La Vendue dropped from her pedestal and 
sank into the mire. ^VShe lost everything," says Louis 
Blanc, — " even the sympathy of the most ultra-partisans 
of the Bourbon dynasty; and she deserved the fate that 
overtook her. It was the sequel to the discovery of a 
terrible secret, — a secret whose publicity became a just 
punishment for her having, in pursuit of her own purposes, 
let loose on France the dogs of civil war." 

In the midst of enthusiasm for her courage and pity for 
her fate, rose a rumor that the duchess would shortly give 
birth to a child. It was even so. The news fell like a 



LOUIS PHILIPPE AND HIS FAMILY. 47 

blow on the hearts of the royahsts. If she had made a 
clandestine, morganatic marriage, she had by the law of 
France forfeited her position as regent during her son's 
minority ; she had forgotten his claims on her and those 
of France. If there was no marriage, she had degraded 
herself past all sympathy. At any rate, now she was harm- 
less. The policy of the Government was manifestly to let 
her child be born at Blaye, and then send her to her Nea- 
politan home. 

Her desire was to leave Blaye before her confinement. 
In vain she pleaded her health and a tendency to con- 
sumption. The Government sent physicians to Blaye, 
among them the doctor who had attended the duchess 
after the birth of the Due de Bordeaux; for it insisted 
on having full proof of her disgrace before releasing her. 
But before this disgrace was announced in Paris, twelve 
ardent young Legitimists had bound themselves to fight 
twelve duels with twelve leading men of the opposite party, 
who might, if she were brought to trial, injure her cause. 
The first of these duels took place ; Armand Carrel, the 
journalist, being the liberal champion, while M. Roux-La- 
borie fought for the duchess. The duel was with swords, 
and lasted three minutes. Twice Carrel wounded his 
adversary in the arm ; but as he rushed on him the third 
time, he received a deep wound in the abdomen. The 
news spread through Paris. The prime minister, M. Thiers, 
sent his private secretary for authentic news of Carrel's 
state. The attendants refused to allow the wounded man 
to be disturbed. "Let him see me," said Carrel; "for 
I have a favor to ask of M. Thiers, — that he will let no 
proceedings be taken against M. Roux-Laborie." 

Government after this became anxious to quench the 
loyalty of the Duchesse de Berri's defenders as soon and as 
effectually as possible. The duel with Armand Carrel was 
fought Feb. 2, 1833; on the 2 2d of February General 
Bugeaud, commander of the fortress of Blaye, received 
from the duchess the following declaration : — 



48 FRANCE IN THE NINETENETH CENTURY. 

Under the pressure of circumstances and of measures 
taken by Government, I think it due to myself and to my chil- 
dren (though I have had grave reasons for keeping my mar- 
riage a secret) to declare that I have been privately married 
during my late sojourn in Italy. 

(Signed) Marie Caroline. 

From that time up to the month of May the duchess 
continued to make vain efforts to obtain her release before 
the birth of her child. It had been intimated to her that 
she should be sent to Palermo as soon afterwards as she 
should be able to travel. 

The Government took every precaution, that the event 
might be verified when it took place. Six or seven of the 
principal inhabitants of Blaye were stationed in an adjoin- 
ing chamber, as is the custom at the birth of princes. 

A little girl having been born, these witnesses were sum- 
moned to the chamber by Madame de Hautfort, the duch- 
ess's lady-in-waiting. The duchess answered their questions 
firmly, and on returning to the next room, her own physician 
declared on oath that the duchess was the lawful wife of 
Count Hector Luchesi-Palli, of the family of Campo Formio, 
of Naples, gentleman of the bedchamber to the king of the 
Two Sicilies, living at Palermo. 

This was the first intimation given of the parentage of 
the child. A mouth later, Marie Caroline and her infant 
embarked on board a French vessel, attended by Marshal 
Bugeaud, and were landed at Palermo. Very few of the 
duchess's most ardent admirers in former days were will- 
ing to accompany her. Her baby died before it was 
many months old. Charles X. refused to let her have 
any further care or charge of her son. ^' As Madame 
Luchesi-Palli," he said, "she had forfeited all claims to 
royal consideration." 

A reconcihation, however, official rather than real, was 
patched up by Chateaubriand between the duchess and 
Charles X. ; but her political career was over. She was 
allowed to see the Due de Bordeaux for two or three days 
once a year. The young prince was thenceforward under 



LOUIS PHILIPPE AND HIS FAMILY. 49 

the maternal care of his aunt, the Duchesse d'Angouleme. 
The Duchesse de Berri passed the remainder of her adven- 
turous life in tranquillity. Her marriage with Count Luchesi- 
PaUi was apparently a happy one. They had four children. 
She owned a palace in Styria, and another on the Grand 
Canal at Venice, where she gave popular parties. In 1847 
she gave some private theatricals, at which were present 
twenty- seven persons belonging to royal or imperial families. 
Her buoyancy of spirit kept her always gay. One would 
have supposed that she would be overwhelmed by the fall 
we have related. She was good-natured, charitable, and 
extravagant. She died leaving heavy debts, which the Due 
de Bordeaux paid for her. Her daughter Louise, sister of 
the Due de Bordeaux, married the Duke of Parma, who was 
assassinated in 1854. Their daughter married Don Carlos, 
who claims at present to be rightful heir to the thrones 
of France and Spain. She died in 1864, shortly after 
the Count Luchesi-PaUi. The Duchesse de Berri, who in 
her later years became very devout, d'apres la manih'-e 
Italienne, as somebody has said, wrote thus about his 
death : — 

*' I have been so tried that my poor head reels. The loss of 
my good and pious daughter made me almost crazy, but the 
care of my husband had somewhat calmed me, when God took 
him to himself. He died hke a saint in my arms, with his 
children around him, smiHng at me and pointing to heaven." 

The duchess died suddenly at Brussels in 1870, aged 
seventy- one. " And," adds an intensely Legitimist writer 
from whom I have taken these details of her declining 
years, "had she lived till 1873, she would have given her 
son better advice than that he followed." ^ 

Without following the ins and outs of politics during the 
first ten years of Louis Philippe's reign, which were check- 
ered by revolts, emeutes, and attempts at regicide, I pass on 
to the next event of general interest, — the explosion of the 
" infernal machine " of Fieschi. 

1 Memoire de la Duchesse d'Angouleme. 

4 



50 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

It was customary for King Louis Philippe to make a 
grand military pronienade through Paris on one of the three 
days of July which during his reign were days of public 
festivity. On the morning of July 28, 1835, ^s the clock 
struck ten, the king, accompanied by his three elder sons. 
Marshals Mortier and Lobeau, his ministers, his staff, his 
household, and many generals, rode forth to review forty 
thousand troops along the Boulevards. At midday they 
reached the Boulevard du Temple. There, as the king 
was bending forward to receive a petition, a sudden volley 
of musketry took place, and the pavement was strewed with 
dead and dying. Marshal Mortier was killed, together with 
a number of officers of various grades, some bystanders, a 
young girl, and an old man. The king had not been shot, 
but as his horse started, he had received a severe contusion 
on the arm. The Duke of Orleans and the Prince de Join- 
ville were slightly hurt. Smoke came pouring from the third- 
story windows of a house (No. 50) on the Boulevard. A 
man sprang from the window, seized a rope hanging from 
the chimney, and swung himself on to a lower roof. As he 
did so, he knocked down a flower-pot, which attracted at- 
tention to his movements. A police agent saw him, and a 
national guard arrested him. He was in his shirt-sleeves, 
and his face was covered with blood. The infernal ma- 
chine he had employed consisted of twenty-five gun-barrels 
on a stand so constructed that they could all be fired at 
once. Happily two did not go off, and four burst, wound- 
ing the wretch who had fired them. Instantly the reception 
of the king, which had been cold when he set forth, changed 
into rapturous enthusiasm. He and his sons had borne 
themselves with the greatest bravery. 

The queen had been about to quit the Tuileries to 
witness the review, when the door of her dressing-room was 
pushed open, and a colonel burst in, exclaiming : " Madame, 
the king has been fired at. He is not hurt, nor the princes, 
but the Boulevard is strewn with corpses." The queen, 
raising her trembling hands to heaven, waited only for a 
repetition of his assurance that her dear ones were all safe, 



LOUIS PHILIPPE AND HIS FAMILY. 51 

and then set out to find the king. She met him on the 
staircase, and husband and wife wept in each other's 
arms. 

The queen then went to her sons, looked at them, and 
touched them, hardly able to believe that they were not 
seriously wounded, and turned away, shuddering, from the 
blood on M. Thiers' clothes. Then, returning to her 
chamber, she sent a note at once to her younger boys, 
D'Aumale and Montpensier, who were with their tutors at 
the Chateau d'Eu. It began with these words : '•' Fall down 
on your knees, my children; God has preserved your 
father." 

Of course the Legitimists, and likewise the Republicans, 
were accused of inspiring the attempt of Fieschi. The 
trials, that took place about six months later, proved that 
the assassin Fieschi was a wretch bearing a strong resem- 
blance to our own Guiteau. 

The funeral ceremonies of the victims of the infernal 
machine were celebrated with great pomp. The affair led 
to a partial reconciliation between the new Government and 
the Legitimist clergy ; it led also to certain restrictions on 
the Press and an added stringency in the punishment for 
crimes of the like character. 

On Jan. 31, 1836, the trial of the prisoners took place 
before the Peers. The crowd of spectators was immense. 
There were five prisoners, but the eyes of the spectators 
were fixed on only three. 

The first was a man under-sized, nervous and quick in his 
movements. His face, which was disfigured by recent scars, 
had an expression of cunning and impudence. His forehead 
was narrow, his hair cropped close, one corner of his mouth 
was disfigured by a scar, his smile was insolent, and so was 
his whole bearing. He seemed anxious to concentrate the 
attention of all present on himself, smiled and bowed to 
every one he knew, and seemed well satisfied with his 
odious importance. 

The second was an old man, pale and ill. He bore 
himself with perfect calmness. He seated himself where 



52 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

he was told to sit, and gave no sign of emotion throughout 
the trial. 

The third was utterly prostrated by fear. 

The first was Fieschi ; the second was called Morey ; the 
third was a grocer named Pepin. 

The two last had been arrested on the testimony of Nina 
Lassave, who had had Fieschi for her lover. The life of this 
man had been always base and infamous. He was a Corsi- 
can by birth, and had been a French soldier. He had 
fought bravely, but after his discharge he had been impris- 
oned for theft and counterfeiting. He led a wandering life 
from town to town, living on his wits and indulging all his 
vices. He had even succeeded in getting some small favors 
from Government ; but finding that he could not long escape 
punishment for crimes known to the police, he undertook, 
apparently without any especial motive, the wholesale 
murder of king, court, and princes. 

During his imprisonment his vanity had been so great 
that the officers of the Crown played upon it in order to 
obtain confessions and information. 

The only witness against Morey was Nina Lassave, who 
insisted that, Fieschi having invented the murderous instru- 
ment, Morey had devised a use for it, and that Pepin had 
furnished the necessary funds for its completion. 

I give Louis Blanc's account of Fieschi's behavior on 
his trial, because when foreign nations have reproached us 
for the scandal of the license granted to the murderer of 
President Garfield on his trial, I have never seen it re- 
marked that Guiteau's conduct was almost exactly like that 
of Fieschi. 

" With effrontery, with a miserable kind of pride, and with 
smiles of triumph on his lips, he alluded to his victims with 
theatrical gesticulations, and plumed himself on the magnitude 
of his own infamy, answering his judges by ignoble buffooneries, 
playing the part of an orator, making pretensions to learning, 
looking round to see what effect he was producing, and courting 
applause. And some of those who sat in judgment on him did 
applaud. At each of his atrocious vulgarisms many of the 



LOUIS PHILIPPE AND HIS FAMILY. 53 

Peers laughed, and this laugh naturally encouraged him. Did 
he make a movement to rise, voices called out : ' Fieschi 
desires to say something. Monsieur le President ! Fieschi is 
about to speak ! ' The audience was unwilling to lose a word 
that might fall from the lips of so celebrated a scoundrel. He 
could hardly contain himself for pride and satisfaction. His 
bloody hand was eager to shake hands with the public, and 
there were those willing to submit to it. He exchanged signs 
with the woman Nina, who was seated in the audience. He 
posed before the spectators with infinite satisfaction. What 
more can we say ? He directed the proceedings. He prompted 
or browbeat the witnesses, he undertook the duties of a prose- 
cuting attorney. He regulated the trial. ... He directed coarse 
jokes at the unhappy Pepin; but 'reckless as he was, he dared 
not meddle with Morey. He had no hesitation in accusing 
himself. He owned himself the worst of criminals, and declared 
that he esteemed himself happy to be able to pay with his own 
blood for the blood of the unhappy victims of his crime. But 
the more he talked about his coming fate, the plainer it was 
that he expected pardon, and the more he flattered those on 
whom that pardon might depend." 

The trial lasted twelve days, and very little was elicited 
about the conspiracy, — if indeed there was one. Suddenly 
Pepin, whose terror had been abject, ralUed his courage, 
refused to implicate Morey or to make revelations, and 
kept his resolution to the last. 

One of the five prisoners was acquitted, one was con- 
demned to a brief imprisonment, and Morey, Pepin, and 
Fieschi were sent to the block. Up to almost the last 
moment Fieschi expected pardon ; but his last words were 
to his confessor : " I wish I could let you know about my- 
self five minutes from now." 

On the scaffold Morey's white hair elicited compassion 
from the spectators. Pepin at the last moment was offered 
a pardon if he would tell whence the money came that he 
had advanced to Fieschi. He refused firmly, and firmly 
met his fate. 

The next day the woman who had betrayed her lover and 
the rest was presiding at a cafe on the Place de la Bourse, 
having been engaged as an attraction ! 



54 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

After these horrors we turn with relief to some account 
of good and noble women, the ladies of Louis Philippe's 
family. 

After the murderous attempt of Fieschi the king lived 
under a continual expectation of assassination. He no 
longer walked the streets of Paris with his cane under his 
arm. When he drove, he sat with his back to the horses, 
because that position gave less certainty to the aim of an 
assassin. It was said that his carriages were lined with 
sheet-iron. He was thirteen times shot at, and the pallid 
looks of the poor queen were believed to arise from con- 
tinual apprehension. Her nerves had been shaken by the 
diabolical attempt of Fieschi, and she never afterwards would 
leave her husband, even for a few days. She stayed away 
from the deathbed of her daughter, the Queen of the Bel- 
gians, lest in her absence he should be assassinated. 

Neuilly was the houie of the family, its beloved, partic- 
ular retreat. The greatest pang that Louis Philippe suffered 
in 1848 was its total destruction by rioters. The little 
palace was furnished in perfect taste, with elegance, yet 
with simplicity. The inlaid floors were especially beautiful. 
The rooms were decorated with pictures, many of them 
representing passages in the early life of the king. In one 
he was teaching mathematics in a Swiss school ; in another 
he was romping with his children. His own cabinet was 
decorated with his children's portraits and with works of 
art by his accomplished daughter, the Princess Marie. The 
family sitting-room was furnished with the princesses' em- 
broidery, and there was a table painted on velvet by the 
Duchesse de Berri. The library was large, and contained 
many English books, among them a magnificent edition of 
Shakspeare. The park enclosed one hundred acres. The 
gardens were laid out in the EngUsh style. A branch of 
the Seine ran through the grounds, with boat-houses and 
bath-houses for the pleasure of the young princes, — and 
in one night this cherished home was laid in ruins ! 

"All is possible," said Louis Philippe to a visitor who 
talked with him at Claremont in his exile, " all is possible 




QUEEN MARIE AM ELI E. 



LOUIS PHILIPPE AND HIS FAMILY. 55 

to France, — an empire, a republic, the Comte de Chambord, 
or my grandson ; but one thing is impossible, — that any of 
these should last. On a tue le respect, — the nation has 
killed respect." 

Queen Marie Amelie was born in Naples in 1782. Her 
mother was a daughter of Maria Theresa, and sister to 
Marie Antoinette. She was not a lady who inspired respect, 
but she had some good qualities. She was a good mother 
to her children, and had plenty of ability. Oi course she 
hated the French Revolution, and everything that savored 
of what are called liberal opinions. Her career, which was 
full of vicissitudes and desperate plots, ended by her being 
dismissed ignominiously from Naples by the English ambas- 
sador, and she went to end her days with her nephew at 
Vienna. 

Marie Amelie used sometimes to tell her children how 
she had wept when a child for the death of the little 
dauphin, the eldest son of Louis XVI., who, before the 
Revolution broke out, was taken away from the evil to 
come. She was to have been married to him had he lived. 
When older, she had an early love-affair with her cousin, 
Prince Antoine of Austria ; but he was destined for the 
Church, and the youthful courtship came to an untimely end. 
When she first met her future husband, she and her family 
were living in a sort of provisional exile in Palermo. The 
princess was twenty-seven, Louis Philippe was ten or twelve 
years older, and they seem to have been quite determined to 
marry each other very soon after their acquaintance began. 
It was not easy to do so, however, for the duke, as we have 
seen, was at that period too much a republican to suit even 
an English Admiral ; but the princess declared that she 
would go into a convent if the marriage was forbidden, 
and on Dec. 25, 1809, she became the wife of Louis 
Philippe. 

No description could do justice to the purity and charity 
of this admirable woman ; and in her good works she was 
seconded by her sister-in-law, Madame Adelaide, and by 
her daughter. 



56 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

"The queen," her almoner tells us, " had 500,000 francs 
a year for her personal expenses, and gave away 400,000 of 
them." " M. Appert," she would say to Mm, "give those 
500 francs we spoke of, but put them down upon next 
month's account. The waters run low this month ; my purse 
is empty." An American lady, visiting the establishment of 
a great dressmaker in Paris, observed an old black silk 
dress hanging over a chair. She remarked with some sur- 
prise : '^ I did not know you would turn and fix up old 
dresses." " I do so only for the queen," was the answer. 

The imposture, ingratitude, and even insolence of some 
of Marie Amelie's petitioners failed to discourage her benev- 
olence. For instance, an old Bonapartist lady, according 
to M. Appert, one day wrote to her : — 

Madame, — If the Bourbons had not returned to France, for 
the misfortune of the country, my beloved mistress and protec- 
tress, the Empress Marie Louise, would still be on the throne, 
and I should not be under the humiliating necessity of telling 
you that I am without bread, and that the wretched bed on which 
I sleep is about to be thrown out of the garret I inhabit, because 
I cannot pay a year's rent. I dare not ask you for assistance, 
for my heart is with my real sovereign, and I cannot promise you 
my gratitude. If, however, you think fit to preserve a life which, 
since the misfortunes of my country, has been full of bitterness, 
I will accept a loan. I should blush to receive a gift. 

I am, Madame, your servant, C. 

When this impertinent letter was handed to the almoner, 
the queen had written on it : " She must be very un- 
happy, for she is very unjust. A hundred francs to be sent 
to her immediately, and I beg M. Appert to make inquiries 
concerning this lady's circumstances." 

In vain the almoner remonstrated. The only effect of 
his remonstrance was that the queen authorized him to 
make her gift 300 francs if he found it necessary. When 
he knocked at the door of the garret of the petitioner, she 
opened it with agitation. " Oh, Monsieur ! " she said, 
" are you the Commissioner of Police come to arrest me 
for my outrageous letter to the queen ? I am so unhappy 



LOUIS PHILIPPE AND HIS FAMILY. 57 

that at times I become deranged. T am sorry to have 
written as I did to a princess who to all the poor is good 
and charitable." For answer, M. Appert showed her her 
own letter, with the queen's memorandum written upon it. 
"There was no lack of heartfelt gratitude then," he says, 
" and no lack of poverty to need the triple benefaction." 



CHAPTER III. 

LOUIS NAPOI-EON'S early career. STRASBURG, BOULOGNE, 

HAM. 

THERE is a theory held by some observers that the 
man who fails in his duty to a woman who has 
claims upon his love and his protection, never afterwards 
prospers; and perhaps the most striking illustration of 
this theory may be found in the career of the Emperor 
Napoleon. Nothing went well with him after his divorce 
from Josephine. His only son died. The children of his 
brothers, with the exception of Louis Napoleon, and the 
Prince de Canino, the son of Lucien, were all ordinary 
men, inclined to the fast life of their period; while the 
descendants of Josephine, honored and respected, are now 
connected with many European thrones. 

The son of Napoleon, called by his grandfather, the Aus- 
trian emperor, the Due de Reichstadt, but by his own 
Bonaparte family Napoleon H., died at Vienna, July 22, 
1832. The person from whom, during his short, sad life, 
he had received most kindness, and to whom, during his 
illness, he was indebted for almost maternal care, was the 
young wife of his cousin Francis, the Princess Sophia of 
Bavaria, who in the same week that he died, became the 
mother of Maximilian, the unfortunate Emperor of Mexico, 
who, exactly thirty-five years after, on July 22, 1867, was 
shot at Queretaro. 

The Emperor Napoleon had made a decree that if male 
heirs failed him, his dynasty should be continued by the 
sons of his brother Joseph. Lucien, the republican, was 
passed over, as well as his descendants ; and Joseph fail- 



LOUIS NAPOLEON'S EARLY CAREER. 59 

ing of male heirs, the throne of France was to devolve on 
Louis, king of Holland, and his heirs. Joseph left only 
daughters, Zenaide and Charlotte. Louis Bonaparte when 
he died, left but one son. 

Louis Bonaparte was nine years younger than his brother 
Napoleon, who by no right of primogeniture, but by right of 
success, was early looked upon as the head of the family of 
Bonaparte. He assumed the place of father to his httle 
brother Louis, and a very unsatisfactory father he proved. 
Louis was studious, poetical, solid, honorable, and unam- 
bitious. His brother was resolved to make him a dis- 
tinguished general and an able king. He succeeded in 
making him a brave soldier and a very good general ; but 
Louis had no enthusiasm for the profession of arms. He 
hated bloodshed, and above all he hated sack and pillage. 
He had no genius, and crooked ways of any kind were 
abhorrent to him. When a very young man he fell pas- 
sionately in love with a lady, whom he called his Sophie. 
But his brother and the world thought the real name of 
the object of his affection was EmiHe de Beauharnais, the 
Empress Josephine's niece by marriage. This lady became 
afterwards the wife of M. de La Vallette, Napoleon's post- 
master-general, who after the return of the Bourbons in 
1 8 15, was condemned to death with Ney and Lab^doyere. 
His wife saved him by changing clothes with him in prison ; 
but the fearful strain her nerves suffered until she was sure 
of his escape, unsettled her reason. She was not sent to an 
asylum, but lived to a great age in an appartejnent in Paris, 
carefully tended and watched over by her friends.^ 

But whether it was with a Sophie or an Emilie, Louis Bona- 
parte fell in love, and Hortense de Beauharnais, the daugh- 
ter of Josephine, gay, lively, poetical, and enthusiastic, had 
given her heart to General Duroc, the Emperor Napoleon's 
aide-de-camp ; therefore both the young people resisted 
the darling project of Napoleon and Josephine to marry 
them to each other. By such a marriage Josephine hoped 
to avert the divorce that she saw to be impending. She 

1 Jerrold's Life of Napoleon III. 



60 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, 

fancied that if sons were born to the young couple, Napo- 
leon would be content to leave his throne to the heir of 
his brother Louis, whom he had adopted, and of his step- 
daughter, of whom he was very fond. But Louis would 
not marry Hortense, and Hortense would not have 
Louis. At last, however, in the excitement of a ball, a 
reluctant consent was wrung from Louis ; then Hortense 
was coerced into being a good French girl, and giving up 
Duroc. She and Louis were married. A more unhappy 
marriage never took place. Husband and wife were sepa- 
rated by an insurmountable (or at least unsurmounted) 
incompatibility of temperament. Louis was a man whose 
first thought was duty. Hortense loved only gayety and 
pleasure. He particularly objected to her dancing; she 
was one of the most graceful dancers ever seen, ind would 
not give it up to please him. In short, she was all graceful, 
captivating frivolity; he, rigid and exacting. Both had 
burning memories in their hearts of what '' might have 
been," and above all, after Louis became king of Holland, 
each took opposite political views. Louis wanted to govern 
Holland as the good king of the Dutch ; Napoleon expected 
him to govern it in the interests of his dynasty, and as a 
Frenchman. The brothers disagreed most bitterly. Na- 
poleon wrote indignant, unjust letters to Louis. Hortense 
took Napoleon's side in the quarrel, and led a French party 
at the Dutch court. 

Intense was the grief of Louis and Hortense, Napoleon 
and Josephine, when the eldest son of this marriage, the 
child on whom their hopes were set, died of the croup at 
an early age. Hortense was wholly prostrated by her loss. 
She had still one son, and was soon to have another. The 
expected child was Charles Louis Napoleon, who was to 
become afterwards Napoleon III. 

Soon after Louis Napoleon's birth, King Louis abdicated 
the throne of Holland. He said he could not do justice 
to the interests and wishes of his people, and satisfy his 
brother at the same time. He retired to Florence, where 
he lived for many years, only once more coming back to 



LOUIS NAPOLEON'S EARLY CAREER. 6l 

public life, viz., in 1 8 14, to offer his help to his brother 
Napoleon, when others were deserting him. 

Napoleon was very fond of Hortense's little boys, though 
in 181 1 he had completed his divorce, had married the 
Austrian archduchess, and had a son of his own. 

Louis Napoleon has left us some fragmentary reminis- 
cences of his childhood, which have a curious interest. 

"My earliest recollections," he says, "go back to my bap- 
tism, and I hasten to remark that I was three years old when I 
was baptized, in 18 10, in the chapel at Fontainebleau. The 
emperor was my godfather, and the Empress Marie Louise 
was my godmother. Then my memory carries me back to Mai- 
maison. I can still see my grandmother, the Empress Josephine, 
in her salon., on the ground floor, covering me with her caresses, 
and, even then, flattering my vanity by the care with which she 
retailed my bofis mots ; for my grandmother spoiled me in every 
particular, whereas my mother, from my tenderest years, tried 
to correct my faults and to develop my good qualities. I re- 
member that once arrived at Malmaison, my brother and I 
were masters to do as we pleased. The empress, who passion- 
ately loved flowers and conservatories, allowed us to cut her 
sugar-canes, that we might suck them, and she always told us to 
ask for anything we might want. 

" One day, when she wished to know as usual, what we would 
like best, my brother, who was three years older than I, and 
consequently more full of sentiment, asked for a watch, with a 
portrait of our mother; but I, when the empress said : ' Louis, 
ask for whatever will give you the greatest pleasure,' begged to 
be allowed to go out and paddle in the gutter with the little 
boys in the street. Indeed, until I was seven years old it was a 
great grief to me to have to ride always in a carriage with four 
or six horses. When, in 1815, just before the arrival of the 
allied army in Paris, we were hurried by our tutor to a hiding- 
place, and passed on foot along the Boulevards, I felt the keen- 
est sensations of happiness within my recollection. Like all 
children, though perhaps even more than most children, soldiers 
fixed my attention. Whenever at Malmaison I could escape 
from the salon., I was off to the great gates, where there were 
always grenadiers of the Garde Impdriale. One day, from a 
ground-floor window I entered into conversation with one of 
these old grognards who was on duty. He answered me laugh- 
ing. I called out : ' I know my drill. I have a little musket ! ' 



62 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Then the grenadier asked me to put him through his drill, and 
thus we were found, I shouting, ' Present arms ! Carry arms ! 
Attention ! ' the old grenadier obeying, to please me. Imagine 
my happiness ! I often went with my brother to breakfast with 
the emperor. When he entered the room, he would come up to 
us, take our heads in his hands, and so lift us on the table. This 
frightened my mother very much, Dr. Corvisart having told her 
that such treatment was very bad for children." 

The day before the Emperor Napoleon left Paris for the 
campaign of Waterloo, Hortense carried her boys to the 
Tuileries to take leave of him. Little Louis Napoleon con- 
trived to run alone to his uncle's cabinet, where he was 
closeted with Marshal Soult. As soon as the boy saw the 
emotion in the emperor's face, he ran up to him, and bury- 
ing his head in his lap, sobbed out : " Our governess says 
you are going to the wars, — don't go ; don't go. Uncle." 
"And why not, Louis? I shall soon come back." "Oh, 
Uncle, those wicked allies will kill you ! Let me go with 
you." The emperor took the boy upon his knee and 
kissed him. Then, turning to Soult, who was moved by the 
little scene, he said, " Here, Marshal, kiss him ; he will 
have a tender heart and a lofty spirit ; he is perhaps the 
hope of my race." 

After Waterloo, the emperor, who passed one night in 
Paris, kissed the children at the last moment, with his foot 
upon the step of the carriage that was to carry him the first 
stage of his journey to St. Helena. 

After this, Hortense and her boys were not allowed to 
live in France. Protected by an aide-de-camp of Prince 
Schwartzenberg, they reached Lake Constance, on the far- 
thest limits of Switzerland. There, after a while. Queen 
Hortense converted a gloomy old country seat into a refined 
and beautiful home. A great trial, however, awaited her. 
King Louis demanded the custody of their eldest son, and 
little Napoleon was taken from his mother, leaving her only 
Louis. Louis had always been a " mother's boy," frail in 
health, thoughtful, grave, loving, and full of sentiment. 

Hortense's life at Arenenberg was varied in the winter by 



LOUIS NAPOLEON'S EARLY CAREER. 63 

visits to Rome. Her husband lived in Florence, and they 
corresponded about their boys. But though they met 
once again in after years, they were husband and. wife no 
more. Indeed, charming as Hortense was to all the circle 
that surrounded her, tender as a mother, and devoted as a 
friend, her conduct as a wife was not free from reproach. 
She was a coquette by nature, and it is undeniable that 
more than one man claimed to have been her lover. 

After a while her son Louis went for four years to college 
at Heidelberg. Mother and son never forget the possibil- 
ities that might he before them. When the Italian revolu- 
tion broke out, in 1832, Hortense went to Rome, both her 
sons being at that time in Florence with their father. Al- 
though the elder was newly married to his cousin, the 
daughter of King Joseph, both he and Louis were full of 
restlessness, and caught the revolutionary fervor. They 
contrived to escape from their father's house and to join 
the insurgents, to the great displeasure of both father and 
mother ; but they were fired by enthusiasm for Italian 
liberty, and took the oaths as Carbonari. 

King Louis and Queen Hortense were exceedingly dis- 
tressed ; both foresav/ the hopelessness of the Italian rising. 
Queen Hortense went at once to Florence to consult her 
husband, and it was arranged that she should go in pursuit 
of her sons, inducing them, if possible, to give up all con- 
nection with so hopeless a cause. But before she reached 
them, the insurgents, who seem to have had no fixed plan 
and no competent leader, had come to the conclusion that 
Bonapartes were not wanted in a struggle for repubUcan- 
ism ; they therefore requested the young men to withdraw, 
and their mother went after them to Ancona. On her way 
she was met by her son Louis, who was coming to tell her 
that his brother was dead. There has always been mystery 
concerning the death of this young Napoleon. The accred- 
ited account is that he sickened with the measles, and died 
at a roadside inn on his way to Ancona. The unhappy 
mother went into that little town upon the Adriatic with her 
youngest son ; but she soon found that the Austrians, having 



64 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

come to the help of the Pope, were at its gates. Louis, 
too, had sickened with the measles. She hid him in an 
inner chamber, and spread a report that he had escaped 
to Corfu. She had with her an English passport for an 
English lady, travelling to England with her two sons. She 
was obliged to substitute a young Italian, who was compro- 
mised, for her dead son ; and as soon as Louis could rise 
from his bed, they set out, meeting with many adventures 
until they got beyond the boundaries of Italy. Under 
cover of their English passport they crossed France, and 
visited the Chateau of Fontainebleau, where the mother 
pointed out to her son the scenes of his childhood. 

The death of the Due de Reichstadt in July, 1832, 
caused Louis Napoleon to consider himself the head of the 
Napoleonic family. According to M. Claude, the French 
Minister of Police, he came on this occasion into Paris, and 
remained there long enough to dabble in conspiracy. 

After spending a few months in England, mother and 
son went back to Arenenberg, where they kept up a close 
correspondence with all malcontents in France. The Le- 
gitimists preferred them to the house of Orleans, and the 
repubhcans of that period — judging from their writings as 
well as their acts — evidently believed that Louis Napoleon, 
now head of the house of Bonaparte, represented repub- 
lican principles based on universal suffrage, as well as the 
glories of France. 

One fine morning in October, 1836, Louis took leave of 
his mother at Arenenberg, telling her that he was going 
to visit his cousins at Baden. Stephanie de Beauharnais in 
the da5^s of the Empire had been married to the Grand 
Duke of that little country. Queen Hortense knew her 
son's real destination, no doubt, for she took leave of him 
with great emotion, and hung around his neck a relic which 
Napoleon had taken from the corpse of the Emperor 
Charlemagne when his tomb was opened at Aix-la-Cha- 
pelle. It was a tiny fragment of wood, said to be from the 
True Cross, set beneath a brilliant emerald. It seems pos- 
sible that this may have been the little ornament found on 



LOUIS NAPOLEON'S EARLY CAREER, 65 

the neck of the Prince Imperial after his corpse was stripped 
by savages in Zululand. 

With this taUsman against evil, and with the wedding- 
ring with which Napoleon had married Josephine, upon his 
finger, Prince Louis Napoleon set out upon an expedition 
so rash that we can hardly bring ourselves to associate it 
with the character popularly ascribed to the Third Em- 
peror Napoleon. 

His plan was to overturn the government of Louis Phi- 
lippe, and then appeal to the people by a plebiscite, — /. e., 
a question to be answered yes or no by universal suffrage. 
This same plan he carried out successfully several times 
during his reign. 

He went from Arenenberg to Baden-Baden,^ where he 
made his final arrangements. Strasburg was to be the scene 
of his first attempt, and at Baden-Baden he had an inter- 
view with Colonel Vamb^ry, who commanded the Fourth 
Regiment of Artillery, part of the Strasburg garrison. 

Louis Blanc, the republican and socialist historian, 
writing in 1843, speaks thus of Louis Napoleon: — 

" Brought up in exile, unfamiliar with France, Louis Bona- 
parts had assumed that the boitrgeoisie remembered only that 
the Empire had curbed the Revolution, established social order, 
and given France the Code Napoleon. He fancied that the 
working-classes would follow the eagle with enthusiasm the 
moment it appeared, borne, as of old, at the head of regiments, 
and heralded by the sound of trumpets. A twofold error! 
The things the bourgeoisie in 1836 remembered most distinctly 
about Napoleon were his despotism and his taste for war; and 
the most lasting impression of him amongst the most intelligent 
in the working-classes was that whilst sowing the seeds of 
democratic aspiration throughout Europe, he had carefully 
weeded out all democratic tendencies in his own dominions." 

But though Louis Blanc is right in saying that the evil 
that Napoleon did, lived after him in the memories of 
thinking men, it is also true that those born since the fall 
of the Second Empire can have no idea of the general 

1 Louis Blanc, Dix Ans. 
5 



66 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, 

enthusiasm that still lingered in France in Louis Philippe's 
reign, round memories of the glories of Napoleon. Men 
might not wish him back again, but they worshipped him 
as the national demigod. After Sedan he was pulled 
down literally and metaphorically from his pedestal; and 
the old feelings about him which half a century ago even 
foreign nations seemed to share, now seem obsolete and 
extravagant to readers of Lanfrey and the books of 
Erckmann-Chatrian. 

Even in 1836, w^hen Louis Napoleon in secret entered 
Strasburg, he was surprised and disappointed to find that 
those on whom he had counted to assist him in making the 
important *' first step " in his career, were very doubtful of 
its prudence. He had counted on the co-operation of 
General Voirol, an old soldier of the Empire who was in 
command of the Department in which Strasburg was sit- 
uated ; but when he wrote him a letter, in the most moving 
terms appealing to his affection for the emperor, the old 
general not only declined to join the plot, but warned the 
Prefect of Strasburg that mischief was on foot, though he 
did not mention in what quarter. The Government in 
Paris seems, however, to have concluded that it would be 
best to let a plot so very rash come to a head. There was 
a public singer, calling herself Madame Gordon, at Baden, 
who flung herself eagerly into the conspiracy. Louis 
Napoleon on quitting Arenenberg had expected to meet 
several generals of distinction, who had served under his 
uncle, at a certain trysting-place between Arenenberg and 
Strasburg. He waited for them three days, but they 
never came. He then resolved to continue his campaign 
without their aid or encouragement, and entered Stras- 
burg secretly on the night of Oct. 28, 1836. The next 
morning he had an interview with Colonel Vambery, who 
endeavored to dissuade him from his enterprise. 

Vambery's prudent reasons made no impression on the 
prince, and he then promised his assistance. Having 
done so, Louis Napoleon offered him a paper, securing a 
pension of 10,000 francs to each of his two children, in 



LOUIS NAPOLEON'S EARLY CAREER. 6/ 

case he should be killed. The colonel tore it up, say- 
ing, " I give, but do not sell, my blood." Major Parquin, 
an old soldier of the Empire, who was in the garrison, had 
been already won. On the night of the prince's arrival 
the conspirators met at his lodging. 

Three regiments of infantry, three regiments of artil- 
lery, and a battalion of engineers formed the garrison at 
Strasburg. The wisest course would have been to appeal 
first to the third regiment of artillery ; but other counsels 
prevailed. The fourth artillery, whose adhesion to the 
cause was doubtful, was chosen for the first attempt. All 
depended upon the impression made upon this regiment, 
which was the one in which Napoleon had served when 
captain of artillery at Toulon. 

The night was spent in making preparations. Procla- 
mations were drawn up addressed to the soldiers, to the 
city, and to France ; and the first step was to be the 
seizure of a printing-office. 

At five o'clock in the morning the signal was given. 
The soldiers of the fourth regiment of artillery were roused 
by the beating of the assemblee. They rushed, half-dressed, 
on to their parade-ground. Louis Napoleon, whose fate it 
was never to be ready, was not prompt even on this occa- 
sion; he was finishing two letters to his mother. One 
was to be sent to her at once if he succeeded, the other 
if he failed. 

On entering the barrack-yard he found the soldiers 
waiting, drawn up in line. On his arrival the colonel 
(Vambery) presented him to the troops as the nephew of 
Napoleon. He wore an artillery uniform. A cheer rose 
from the line. Then Louis Napoleon, clasping a gilt 
eagle brought to him by one of the officers, made a 
speech to the men, which was well received. His cause 
seemed won. 

Next, followed by the troops, but exciting little enthusi- 
asm in the streets of Strasburg as he passed along them 
in the gray dawn of a cloudy day, Louis Napoleon made 
his way to the quarters of General Voirol. The general 



68 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

emphatically refused to join the movement, and a guard 
was at once set over him. 

Up to this moment all had smiled upon the enterprise. 
The printing of the proclamations was going rapidly on, 
the third regiment of artillery was bringing out its guns 
and horses, and the inhabitants of Strasburg, roused from 
their beds, were watching the movement as spectators, pre- 
pared to assist it or to oppose it, according as it made 
its way to success or failure. 

The prince, and the troops who supported him, next 
marched to the barracks of the infantry. On their road 
they lost their way, and approached the barracks in such a 
manner that they left themselves only a narrow alley to 
retreat by, in case of failure. 

On the prince presenting himself to the guard, an old 
soldier of the army of Napoleon kneeled and kissed his 
hand, when suddenly one of the officers, who had his quar- 
ters in the town, rushed upon the scene with his sword 
drawn, crying : " Soldiers, you are deceived ! This man is 
not the nephew of the Emperor Napoleon, he is an im- 
postor, — a relative of Colonel Vambery ! " 

This turned the tide. Whilst the soldiers stood irreso- 
lute, the colonel of the regiment arrived. For a few 
moments he was in danger from the adherents of the 
prince. His own soldiers rushed to his rescue. A tumult 
ensued. The little band of ImperiaHsts was surrounded, 
and their cause was lost. 

Louis Napoleon yielded himself a prisoner. One or two 
of the conspirators, among them Madame Gordon, man- 
aged to escape ; the rest were captured. 

News was at once sent by telegraph to Paris j but the 
great wooden-armed telegraph- stations were in those days 
uncertain and unmanageable. Only half of the telegram 
reached the Tuileries, where the king and his ministers sat 
up all night waiting for more news. At daybreak of Octo- 
ber 30 a courier arrived, and then they learned that the 
rising had been suppressed, and that the prince and his 
confederates were in prison. 



LOUIS NAPOLEON'S EARLY CAREER. 69 

Meantime the young officer in charge of Louis Napo- 
leon's two letters to Queen Hortense had prematurely come 
to the conclusion that the prince was meeting with success, 
and had hurried off the letter announcing the good news 
to his mother. 

How to dispose of such a capture as the head of the 
house of Bonaparte was a great puzzle to Louis Philippe's 
ministers. They dared not bring him to trial ; they dared 
not treat him harshly. Li the end he was carried to 
Paris, lodged for a few days in the Conciergerie, and then 
sent off, without being told his destination, to Cherbourg, 
where he was put on board a French frigate which sailed 
with orders not to be opened till she reached the equator. 
There it was found that her destination was Rio Janeiro, 
where she was not to suffer the prince to land, but after 
a leisurely voyage she was to put him ashore in the United 
States. 

As the vessel was about to put to sea, an official personage 
waited on the prince, and after inquiring if he had funds 
enough to pay his expenses on landing, handed him, on the 
the part of Louis Philippe, a considerable sum. 

On reaching Norfolk, Virginia, the prince landed, and 
learned, to his very great relief, that all his fellow-con- 
spirators had been tried before a jury at Strasburg, and 
acquitted ! 

He learned too, shortly afterwards, that his mother was 
very ill. The shock of his misfortune, and the great exer- 
tions she had made on his behalf when she thought his 
Hfe might be in danger, had proved too much for her. 
Louis Napoleon recrossed the ocean, landed in England, 
and made his way to Arenenberg. He was just in time to 
see Queen Hortense on her death-bed, to receive her last 
wishes, and to hear her last sigh. 

After her death the French Government insisted that the 
Swiss Confederacy must compel Louis Napoleon to leave their 
territory. The Swiss refused, repaired the fortifications of 
Geneva, and made ready for a war with France ; but Louis 
Napoleon of his own free will relieved the Swiss Government 



70 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

from all embarrassment by passing over into England, 
where it was not long before he made preparations for a 
new attempt to overthrow Louis Philippe's government. 

He lived quietly in London at that period, visiting few 
persons except Count D'Orsay at Gore House, the resi- 
dence of Lady Blessington, and occupying himself a great 
deal with writing. He had already completed a Manual 
of Artillery, and was engaged on a book that he called 
'' Les Id^es napoleoniennes." Its principal "idea" was 
that France wanted an emperor, a definite head, but that 
she also needed extreme democratic principles. Therefore 
an empire ought to be founded on an expression of the will 
of the people, — in plain words, on universal suffrage. The 
mistake Napoleon IIL made in his after career, as well as 
in his " Idees napoleoniennes," was in not perceiving that an 
empire without military glory would become a pool of 
corruption, while vast military efforts, which would embroil 
France with all Europe, would lose the support of the 
bourgeoisie. " In short," as Louis Blanc has said, " he 
imagined a despotism without its triumphs ; a throne sur- 
rounded by court favorites, but without Europe at its foot- 
stool; a great name, with no great man to bear it, — the 
Empire, in short, minus its Napoleon ! " 

During the months that Louis Napoleon passed in Lon- 
don he was maturing the plot of a new enterprise. He 
was collecting round him his adherents, some of them 
Carbonaro leaders, with whom he had been associated in 
Italy. Some were his personal friends ; some were men 
whose devotion to the First Napoleon made them ashamed 
to refuse to support his nephew, even in an insurrection 
that they disapproved ; while some were mere adventurers. 

Very few persons were admitted to his full confidence ; the 
affair was managed by a clique, " the members of which had 
been previously sounded ; and in general those were set aside 
who could not embark in the undertaking heart and hand." 

By all these men Louis Napoleon was treated as an 
imperial personage. To the Itahans he stood pledged, 
and had stood pledged since 1831, that if they helped 



LOUIS NAPOLEON'S EARLY CAREER. Jl 

him to ascend the throne of France, he would fight after- 
wards for the cause of Italy. This pledge he redeemed 
at Solferino and Magenta, but not till after some impatient, 
rash Itahans (believing him forsworn) had attempted his 
assassination. 

In vain he was advised to wait, to let Louis Philippe's 
Government fall to the ground for want of a foundation. 
He had made his decision, and was resolved to adhere to 
it, not fearing to make that step which lies between the 
sublime and the ridiculous. 

The attempt had been in preparation ever since Louis 
Napoleon had arrived in England, There were about 
forty of his adherents living in London at his expense, 
awaiting the moment for action. What form that action 
was to take, none of them knew.^ It was resolved to make 
the movement in the month of August, 1840. The prince 
calculated that the remains of his great uncle, restored by 
England to France, being by that time probably on their 
way from St. Helena, public enthusiasm for the great em- 
peror would be at its height, and that he would have the 
honor of receiving those revered remains when they had 
been brought back from exile by Louis PhiUppe's son. 
Besides this, the garrisons of northern France happened 
at that moment to contain the two regiments whose fidelity 
he had tampered with at Strasburg four years before. 

Of course there were French agents of police (detec- 
tives, as we call them) watching the prince in London ; 
and this made it necessary that he should be very circum- 
spect in making his preparations. A steamer, the " Edin- 
burgh Castle," was secretly engaged. The owners and 
the captain were informed that she was chartered by some 
young men for a pleasure-trip to Hamburg. 

On Tuesday, Aug. 4, 1840, the "Edinburgh Castle" 
came up the Thames, and was moored alongside a wharf 
facing the custom-house. As soon as she was at the wharf, 

^ In this account I am largely indebted to the interesting narra- 
tive of Count loseph Orsi, an Italian banker, Prince Louis Napo- 
leon's stanch personal friend. 



72 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Count Orsi, who seems to have been the most business- 
like man of the party, shipped nine horses, a travelUng 
carriage, and a large van containing seventy rifles and as 
many uniforms. Proclamations had been printed in ad- 
vance ; they were placed in a large box, together with 
a little store of gold, which formed the prince's treasure. 

At dawn all this was done, and the " Edinburgh Castle " 
started down the river. At London Bridge she took in 
thirteen men, and at Greenwich three more. At Black- 
wall some of the most important conspirators came on 
board. The boat reached Gravesend about two o'clock, 
where twelve more men joined them. Only three or four 
of those on board knew where they were going, or what 
was expected of them. They were simply obeying 
orders. 

At Gravesend the prince was to have joined his followers, 
and the *^ Edinburgh Castle " was at once to have put 
to sea, touching, however, at Ramsgate before crossing 
the Channel. Those on board waited and waited, but no 
prince came. Only five persons in the vessel (one of 
whom was Charles Thelin, the prince's valet) knew what 
they were there for.. 

For some time the passengers were kept quiet by break- 
fast. Then, having no one at their head, they began to 
grow unruly. Those in the secret were terribly afraid 
that the river police might take notice of the large num- 
ber of foreigners on board, especially as the vessel claimed 
to be an excursion-boat, and not a petticoat was visible. 
It was all important to catch the tide, — all important 
to reach Boulogne before sunrise on the 5 th of August, 
when their friends expected them. But no prince came. 

Major Parquin, who had been one of the Strasburg con- 
spirators, was particularly unmanageable ; and late in the 
afternoon he insisted on going ashore to buy some cigars, 
saying that those on board were detestable. In vain Per- 
signy and Orsi, who in the prince's absence considered 
themselves to be in command, assured him that to land 
was impossible ; Parquin would not recognize their au- 



LOUIS NAPOLEON'S EARLY CAREER. 73 

thority. The rest of the story I will tell in Count Orsi's 
own words. He wrote his account in " Fraser's Magazine," 
1879: — 

" The wrath of the major was extreme. There was danger 
in his anger. I consulted Persigny on the advisability of 
letting him go on shore, with the distinct understanding that 
he should be accompanied by me or by Charles Thelin." 

The truth, it may be suspected, was that Parquin was 
drunk, or that, having suspected the object of the expe- 
dition, he had some especial object in going ashore, which 
he would not reveal to his fellow-conspirators. 

" Persigny," continues Count Orsi, " consented to the idea, 
and Parquin and I got into the boat. The vessel was lying 
in the stream. Thehn was with us. As we were walking to 
the cigar-shop, the major remarked a boy sitting on a log 
of wood and feeding a tame eagle with shreds of meat. The 
eagle had a chain fastened to one of its claws. The major 
turned twice to look at it, and went on without saying a word. 
On our way back to the boat, however, we saw the boy within 
two yards of the landing-place. The major went up to him, 
and looking at the eagle, said in French, ' Is it for sale ? ' The 
boy did not understand him. 'My dear Major,' I said, 'I 
hope you do not intend to buy that eagle. We have other 
things to attend to. For Heaven's sake, come away! ' 'Why 
not? I w/// have it. Ask him what he asks for it.'" 

The major paid a sovereign for the eagle, and this 
unlucky purchase was the cause that endless ridicule was 
cast on the expedition. It has always been supposed that 
the eagle was one of the " properties " provided for the 
occasion, and that it was intended to perch on the Na- 
poleon Column at Boulogne. It may well be supposed 
that this is not far from the truth, and that Major Parquin 
had the eagle waiting for him at Gravesend. Eagles are 
so very uncommon in England that it is unlikely that a 
boy, without set purpose, would be waiting with a tame 
one on a wharf at Gravesend. The unfortunate bird be- 
came in the end the property of a butcher in Boulogne. 



74 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

By six p. M. the party in the " Edinburgh Castle " grew 
very uneasy; the prince had not arrived. Count Orsi 
took a post-chaise and drove overland to Ramsgate, 
where Count Montholon (Napoleon's fellow-exile at St. 
Helena) and two colonels were waiting the arrival of the 
steamer. Only one of these gentlemen had been let into 
the plot^ and Montholon was subsequently deeply wounded 
by having been excluded. 

About dawn, when this party had just gone to bed, the 
" Edinburgh Castle " steamed up to the beautiful Ramsgate 
pier; but it was already the hour when she should have 
been off Boulogne. 

A second time Louis Napoleon had damaged his chances 
and risked his friends by his want of punctuality. He had 
not taken proper precautions as to his mode of leaving 
London. He found that the police were on the alert, and 
it was late in the day before he contrived to leave his 
house unseen. He might have made more exertion, but 
he had quite forgotten the importance of the tide ! 

What was now to be done? Four hours is the passage 
from Ramsgate to Boulogne. It would not do to arrive 
there in broad daylight. They dared not stay at Ramsgate. 
It became necessary to put to sea, and to steam about 
aimlessly till night arrived. The captain and the crew 
had to be told the object of the expedition, the van had 
to be opened, and the arms and uniforms distributed. 
This was done after dark, and no light was allowed on 
board the steamer. 

At three o'clock a.m. of Aug. 6, 1840, the '^Edinburgh 
Castle " was off Wimereux, a little landing-place close to 
Boulogne. The disembarkation was begun at once. The 
steamer was ill provided with boats. She had but one, 
and could only land eight men at a time. This was 
one of the many oversights of the expedition. 

At five A. M. the little troop, clad as French soldiers, 
marched up to the barracks at Boulogne. The gates were 
thrown open by friends within, and the prince and his 
followers entered the yard. The reason why it had been 



LOUIS kAPOLEON'S EARLY CAREER. 75 

SO important to reach Boulogne twenty-four hours earHer, 
was that a certain Colonel Piguellier, who was a strong 
republican, was sure to be against them. Some French 
friends of the prince, who were in the secret, had there- 
fore invited Colonel Piguellier to a shooting-party on the 
4th, the invitation including one to pass the night at a 
house in the country; but by the evening of the 5th he 
had returned to his quarters in Boulogne. 

At the moment of the prince's entrance, with his little 
troop, into the yard of the barracks, the soldiers of the 
garrison were just getting out of their beds. The few who 
were already afoot on different duties were soon made to 
understand who the prince was, and what his party had 
come for. At the name of Napoleon they rushed up to 
the dormitories to spread the news. In a short time all 
the men v/ere formed in line in the barrack-yard. 

The prince, at the head of his little troop, addressed 
them. His speech was received with enthusiasm. hX. 
that moment Colonel Piguellier, in full uniform, appeared 
upon the scene. One of the prince's party threatened to 
fire on him with a revolver. His soldiers at once took his 
part. It was the affair of Strasburg over again. 

In vain, threats and promises were urged upon the 
colonel. All he would say was : " You may be Prince 
Louis Napoleon, or you may not. Napoleon, your pre- 
decessor, overthrew legitimate authority, and it is not right 
for you to attempt to do the same thing in this place. 
Murder me if you like, but I will do my duty to the last." 

The soldiers took the side of their commander. Resis- 
tance was of no avail. The prince and his party were 
forced to leave the barracks, the gates of which were shut 
at once by Colonel Piguellier's order. The only concession 
the prince had been able to obtain was that he and his 
followers should not be pursued by the troops, but be left 
to be dealt with by the civil authorities. 

The failure was complete. The day before, a party of 
the prince's friends had been at Boulogne on the lookout 
for his arrival ; but when they found he did not come, they 



'j6 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

had left the city. All that remained to be done was to 
attempt to save the prince. He was almost beside him- 
self. Apparently he lost his self-command, and men of 
more nerve and experience did with him what they would. 

He and his party reached the sea at last. The National 
Guard of Boulogne began firing on them. The prince, 
Count Persigny, Colonel Voisin, and Galvani, an Italian, 
were put into a boat. As they pushed off, a fire of mus- 
ketry shattered the little skiff, and threw them into the 
water. Colonel Voisin's arm was broken at the elbow, and 
Galvani was hit in the body. The prince and Persigny 
came up to the surface at some distance from the land. 
Colonel Voisin and Galvani, being nearer to the shore, were 
immediately rescued. Count Orsi says that as the prince 
swam towards the steamer, still fired on by the National 
Guard stationed on the heights, a custom-house boat headed 
him off. But in Boulogne it was reported and believed 
that he was captured and brought to land in a bathing 
machine. 

The prisoners were tried by a royal decree. No one 
was sentenced to death, but the prince, Count Montholon, 
Count Persigny, Colonel Voisin, Major Parquin, and an- 
other officer were sent to the fortress of Ham, on the 
frontier of Belgium, where they occupied the same quarters 
as Prince Polignac and the other ministers of Charles X. 
had done. Count Montholon, four months after, made 
piteous appeals to be let out on parole for one day, that he 
might be present when the body of Napoleon was brought 
back to the capital. 

The prince passed five years in prison, reading much, 
and doubtless meditating much on the mistakes of his 
career. Many plans of escape had been secretly pro- 
posed to him, but he rejected all of them, fearing they were 
parts of a trap laid for him by the authorities. It has al- 
ways been believed, however, and it is probably true, that 
Louis Philippe would have been very wilHng to have the 
jailers shut their eyes while Louis Napoleon walked out of 
their custody, believing that the ridicule that had attended 



LOUIS NAPOLEON'S EARLY CAREER. 77 

his two attempts at revolution had ruined his chances as a 
pretender to the throne. 

During the years Louis Napoleon was imprisoned at 
Ham, he received constant marks of sympathy, especially 
from foreigners. He was known to favor the project of an 
interoceanic canal by the Nicaragua route between the At- 
lantic and Pacific Oceans, and the Government of Nicaragua 
proposed to him to become president of a company that 
would favor its views, expressing the hope that he would 
make himself as great in America by undertaking such a 
work, as his uncle has made himself by his military 
glory. 

The illness of his father in Florence gave Prince Louis 
Napoleon a good reason for asking enlargement on parole 
from the French Government. Louis Philippe was willing 
to grant this ; but his ministers demurred, unless Louis 
Napoleon would ask pardon loyalement. This Louis Napo- 
leon refused to do ; and having by this time managed to ex- 
tract a loan of ^6,000 from the rich and eccentric Duke of 
Brunswick, he resolved to attempt an escape. 

Here is the story as he told it himself when he reached 
England. The governor of Ham, it must be premised, was 
a man wholly uncorruptible. He was kind to his prisoner, 
with whom he played whist every evening, but he was bent 
on fulfilling his duty. 

This duty obliged him to see the prince twice a day, 
and at night to turn the key upon him, which he put into 
his pocket. 

The fortress of Ham forms a square, with a round tower 
at each of the angles. There is only one gate. Between 
the towers are ramparts, on one of which the prince daily 
walked, and in one corner had made a flower-garden. A 
canal ran outside the ramparts on two sides ; barracks were 
under the others. Thelin, the prince's valet, was suffered 
to go in and out of the fortress at his pleasure. On the 
23d of May, 1845, Thelin went to St. Quentin, the nearest 
large town, and hired a cabriolet, which was to meet him 
the next day at an appointed place upon the high-road. 



78 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

The prince's plan depended on there being workmen in 
the prison, and he had been about to make a request to 
have his rooms papered and painted, when the governor 
informed him that the staircase was to be repaired. The 
day before the one chosen for the attempt, two English 
gentlemen, probably by a previous understanding, had 
visited the prisoner, and he asked one of them to lend 
his passport to the valet Thelin. 

" Very early on the morning of May 25th, the prince, Dr. 
Conneau, and Thelin were looking out eagerly for the arrival of 
the workmen, A private soldier whose vigilance they had reason 
to dread had been placed on guard that morning, but by good 
luck he was called away to attend a dress parade. 

" The workmen arrived. They proved to be all painters and 
masons, — which was a disappointment to the prince, who had 
hoped to go out as a carpenter. But at once he shaved off his long 
moustache, and put over his own clothes a coarse shirt, a work- 
man's blouse, a pair of blue overalls much worn, and a black 
wig. His hands and face he also soiled with paint ; then, putting 
on a pair of wooden shoes and taking an old clay pipe in his 
mouth, and throwing a board over his shoulder, he prepared to 
leave the prison. He had with him a dagger, and two letters 
from which he never parted, — one written by his mother, the 
other by his uncle, the emperor. 

" It was seven o'clock by the time these preparations were 
made. Thelin called to the workmen on the staircase to come 
in and have a glass of wine. On the prince's way downstairs 
he met two warders. One Thelin skilfully drew apart, pretend- 
ing to have something to say to him; the other was so intent on 
getting out of the way of the board carried by the supposed 
workman that he did not look in the prince's face, and the 
prince and Thelin passed safely into the yard." 

As he was passing the first sentinel, the prince let his pipe 
fall from his mouth. He stooped, picked it up, and re-lighted 
it deliberately. 

" Close to the door of the canteen he came upon an officer 
reading a letter. A little farther on, a few privates were sitting 
on a bench in the sun. The concierge at the gate was in his 
lodge, but his attention was given to Thelin, who was following 
the prince, accompanied by his dog Ham. The sergeant, whose 
duty it was to open and shut the gate, turned quickly and looked 



LOUIS NAPOLEOA'S EARLY CAREER. 



79 



at the supposed workman ; but a movement the prince made at 
that moment with his board caused him to step aside. He opened 
the gate : the prince was free. 

" Between the two drawbridges the prince met two workmen 
coming towards him on the side his face was exposed. He 
shifted his board hke a man weary of carrying a load upon one 
shoulder. The men appeared to eye him with suspicion, as if 
surprised at not knowing him. Suddenly one said : ' Oh ! it is 
Berthon ; ' and they passed on into the fortress." 

The prince hastened with Thelin to the place where the 
cabriolet engaged the day before was waiting for them. 
As Louis Napoleon was about to fling away the board he 
had been carrying, another cabriolet drove by. As soon as 
it was out of sight, the prince jumped into his own, shook 
the dust off his clothes, kicked off his wooden shoes, and 
seized the reins. The fifteen miles to St. Quentin were 
soon accomplished. The prince got out at some distance 
from the town, and Thehn entered it alone, to exchange the 
cabriolet for a postchaise. The mistress of the post-house 
offered him a large piece of pie, which he thankfully ac- 
cepted, knowing that it would be a godsend to his master. 
A woman, whom they had passed upon the highway on 
entering the town, took Thelin aside and asked him how 
he came to be driving with such a shabby, common 
man that morning; for Thelin was well known in the 
neighborhood. 

Before he rejoined the prince with the pie and the post- 
chaise, Louis Napoleon had become very impatient. See- 
ing a carriage approach, he stopped it, and asked the 
occupant if he had seen anything of a postchaise coming 
from St. Quentin. The traveller proved afterwards to have 
been the prosecuting attorney of the district {le prociweur 
dii roi) . 

It was nine in the evening when the prince, Thelin, and 
the dog Ham were safely in the carriage. They reached 
Valenciennes at a quarter to three a. m., and had to wait 
more than an hour at the station for the train. The prince 
had discarded his working clothes, but still wore his black wig. 
The train arrived at last. By help of the Englishman's pass- 



80 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

port the prince safely crossed the frontier, and soon reached 
Brussels. Thence he went by way of Ostend to London. 

He was not in time to see his father, who died in Florence 
before he could get permission from the German States to 
cross the continent. 

All the French papers treated his escape as a matter of no 
consequence. Immediately on reaching London, he wrote 
a letter to Louis Philippe, pledging himself to make no fur- 
ther attempt to disturb the peace of France during his reign. 
He probably judged that the end of the Orleans dynasty 
might be near. 

His escape from prison was not known until the evening. 
Dr. Conneau gave out that he had been very ill during the 
night, but under the influence of opiates was sleeping 
quietly. The governor insisted on remaining all day in the 
sitting-room, and finally upon seeing him. In the dim 
light of the sick chamber he saw only a figure, with its 
face turned to the wall, covered up in the bed-clothes. 

At last he became suspicious. Thelin's prolonged ab- 
sence seemed unaccountable. A closer examination was 
insisted on, and the truth was discovered. Nobody was 
punished except Dr. Conneau, who suffered a few months' 
imprisonment. 




LOUIS PHILIPPE. 

( ' ' The Citizen King. ' ' ) 



CHAPTER ly. 

TEN YEARS OF THE REIGN OF THE CITIZEN KING. 

BESIDES the affairs of the Duchesse de Berri, of Louis 
Napoleon, of Fieschi and his infernal machine, and 
difficulties attending on the marriage of the Duke of 
Orleans, the first ten years of Louis Philippe's reign were 
full of vicissitudes. France after a revolution is always an 
" unquiet sea that cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire 
and dirt." Frenchmen do not accept the inevitable as 
Americans have learned to do, through the working of their 
institutions. 

One of the early troubles of I>ouis Philippe was the 
peremptory demand of President Jackson for five million 
dollars, — a claim for French spoliations in 1797. This 
amount had been acknowledged by the Government of 
Louis Philippe to be due, but the Chambers were not will- 
ing to ratify the agreement. In the course of the negotia- 
tions the secretary of General Jackson, having occasion to 
translate to him a French despatch, read, *' The French 
Government de7na?ids — " " Demands ! " cried the gen- 
eral, with a volley of rough language ; " if the French Gov- 
ernment dares to de7?iajid anything of the United States, it 
will not get it." 

It was long before he could be made to understand the 
true meaning of the French word demande, and his own 
demands were backed with threats and couched in terms 
more forcible than diplomatic. The money was paid after 
the draft of the United States for the first instalment had 
been protested, and France has not yet forgotten that when 

6 



82 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

she was still in the troubled waters of a recent revolution, 
she was roughly treated by the nation which she had 
befriended at its birth. 

The greatest military success in Louis Philippe's reign 
was the capture of Constantine in Algeria. So late as 1810 
Algerine corsairs were a terror in the Mediterranean, and 
captured M. Arago, who was employed on a scientific expe- 
dition.^ In 1835, France resolved to undertake a crusade 
against these pirates, which might free the commerce of the 
Mediterranean. The enterprise was not popular in France. 
It would cost money, and it seemed to present no material 
advantages. It was argued that its benefits would accrue 
only to the dynasty of Louis Philippe, that Algeria would be 
a good training-school for the army, and that the main duty 
of the army in future might be to repress republicanism. 

In 1834, a young Arab chief called Abdul Kader, the son 
of a Marabout of great sanctity, had risen into notice. 
Abdul Kader was a man who realized the picture of Saladin 
drawn by Sir Walter Scott in the "Talisman." Brave, 
honorable, chivalrous, and patriotic, his enemies admired 
him, his followers adored him. When he made his first 
treaty with the French, he answered some doubts that were 
expressed concerning his sincerity by saying gravely : " My 
word is sacred ; I have visited the tomb of the Prophet." 

Constantine, the mountain fortress of Oran, was held, not 
by Abdul Kader, but by Ahmed Bey, the representative 
of the sultan's suzerainty in the Barbary States. The first 
attack upon it failed. The weather and the elements fought 
against the French in this expedition. General Changarnier 
distinguished himself in their retreat, and the Due de 
Nemours showed endurance and bravery. 

From the moment of that repulse, popular enthusiasm 
was aroused. A cry rang through France that Constantine 
must be taken. It was captured two years later, after a 

1 About the same time they took prisoner a cousin of my father, 
John Warner Wormeley, of Virginia. He was sold into slavery ; but 
when tidings of his condition reached his friends, he was ransomed by 
my grandfather. 



REIGN OF THE CITIZEN KING. 83 

siege in which two French commanders-in-chief and many 
generals were killed. Walls fell, and mines exploded ; the 
place at last was carried by assault. At one moment, when 
even French soldiers wavered, a legion of foreign dare- 
devils (chiefly Irishmen and Enghshmen) were roused by 
an English hurrah from the man who became afterwards 
Marshal Saint-Arnaud. With echoing cheers they followed 
him up the breach, the army followed after them, and the 
city was won. 

Louis Philippe had been raised to power by four great 
men, — Lafayette, Laffitte, Talleyrand, and Thiers. Of these, 
Laffitte and Lafayette retained little influence in his coun- 
cils, and both died early in his reign. In 1838 died 
Talleyrand, — the prince of the old diplomatists. The king 
and his sister, Madame Adelaide, visited him upon his 
death-bed. Talleyrand, supported by hiss ecretary, sat up 
to receive the king. He was wrapped in a warm dressing- 
gown, with the white curls he had always cherished, flowing 
over his shoulders, while the king sat near him, dressed in 
his claret-colored coat, brown wig, and varnished boots. 
Some one who was present whispered that it was an inter- 
view between the last of the a^tcienne noblesse and the first 
citizen bourgeois. But the old courtier was touched by the 
intended kindness, and when the king was about to go 
away, he said, half rising : " Sire, this honor to my house 
will be gratefully remembered in the annals of my family." 

Deep and true was the grief felt for the loss of Talleyrand 
in his own household ; many and bitter have been the 
things said of his character and his career. He himself 
summed up his life in some words written shortly before 
his death, which read like another verse in the Book of 
Ecclesiastes : — 

" Eighty-three years have rolled away ! How many cares, 
how many anxieties! How many hatreds have I inspired, how 
many exasperating complications have I known ! And all this 
with no other result than great moral and physical exhaustion, 
and a deep feeling of discouragement as to what may happen in 
the future, — disgust, too, as I think over the past." 



84 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

A writer in "Temple Bar " (probably Dr. Jevons) speaks 
of Prince Talleyrand thus : — 

" On his private life it would be unfair to pass judgment with- 
out taking into consideration the turbulence and lawlessness, 
the immorality and corruption both social and political, which 
characterized the stormy epoch in which he was called to play 
a very prominent part. If he did not pass through it blameless, 
he was less guilty than many others ; if his hands were not pure, 
at least they were not blood-stained ; and it is possible that, as 
Bourienne, who knew him well, says : ' History will speak as 
favorably of him as his contemporaries have spoken ill.' " 

The summer of 1 840 seemed peaceful and serene, when 
a storm burst suddenly out of a cloudless sky. It was a 
new phase of that Eastern Question which unhappily was 
not settled in the days of the Crusades, but has survived to 
be a disturbing element in the nineteenth century. Two 
men were engaged in a fierce struggle in the East, and, as 
usual, they drew the Powers of the West and North into 
their quarrel. 

Sultan Mahmoud, who had come to the throne in 1808, 
had done his best to destroy the power of his pashas. He 
hated such powerful and insubordinate nobles, and after the 
destruction of the Mamelukes in 181 1, he placed Egypt 
under the rule of the bold Macedonian soldier, Mehemet 
Ali, not as a pasha, but as viceroy. In course of time, as 
the dominions of Sultan Mahmoud became more and more 
disorganized by misgovernment and insurrection, Mehemet 
Ali sent his adopted son, Ibrahim Pasha, with an army into 
Syria. Ibrahim conquered that province and governed it 
far better than the Turks had done, when he was stopped 
by a Russian army (1832), which, under pretence of assist- 
ing the sultan, interfered in the quarrel. An arrangement 
was effected by what is called the treaty of Unkiar-Thelessi. 
Ibrahim was to retain the pashalik of Syria for his life, and 
Russia stipulated that no vessels of war should be allowed 
to pass the Dardanelles or Hellespont without the consent 
of the sultan. 



REIGN OF THE CITIZEN KING. 85 

Mehemet Ali, who was anxious above all things to have 
his viceroyalty in Egypt made hereditary, that he might 
transmit his honors to his brave son, cast about in every 
direction to find friends among European diplomatists. Six 
years before, he had proposed to England, France, and 
Austria a partition of the sultan's empire. " Russia," he 
said, " is half mistress of Turkey already. She has estab- 
lished a protectorate over half its subjects, who are Greek 
Christians, and where she professes to protect, she oppresses 
instead. If she seizes Constantinople, there is the end of 
your European civilization. I am a Turk, but I propose to 
you to inaugurate a crusade which will save Turkey and 
save Europe. I will raise my standard against the czar ; I 
will put at your disposal my army, fleet, and treasure ; I 
will lead the van ; and in return I ask only my independence 
of the Porte and an acknowledgment of me as an hereditary 
sovereign." This proposition was promptly declined. It 
was renewed, in 1838, in a modified form, but again Eng- 
land, France, and Austria would not listen to the viceroy's 
reasoning. Mehemet Ali became a prey to despair. 

Sultan Mahmoud meantime was no less a victim to re- 
sentment and anxiety. He hated his enforced subservience 
to Russia, and above all he hated his great subject and rival, 
Mehemet AH. With fury in his heart he watched how, 
shred by shred, his great empire was wrenched away from 
him, — Greece, Syria, Servia, Algiers, Moldavia, and Wal- 
lachia. Little remained to him but Constantinople and its 
surrounding provinces. Russia, all-powerful in the Black 
Sea, could at any moment force him to give up to her the 
key of the Dardanelles. Among the Turks (the only part 
of his subjects on whom he could rely) were many mal- 
contents. Fanatic dervishes predicted his overthrow, and 
called him the Giaour Sultan. He had destroyed Turkish 
customs, outraged Turkish feelings, and by the massacre o 
the Janissaries, in 1826, he had sapped Turkish strength. 
He now began in his own person to set at nought the pre- 
cepts of the Koran. All day he worked with frenzy, and at 
night he indulged himself in frightful orgies, till, dead drunk, 



S6 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, 

he desisted from his madness, and was carried by his slaves 
to his bed.^ 

In the early months of 1839 Mahmoud made quiet prep- 
arations to thrust Ibrahim Pasha out of Syria ; and in June 
a great battle was fought between the Egyptians and the 
Turks on the banks of the Euphrates, in which Ibrahim 
Pasha, by superior generalship, wholly defeated the Turkish 
commander, Hafiz Pasha. 

Sultan Mahmoud never heard of this disaster. He 
died of delirium tremens the very week that it took place, 
and his son, Abdul Medjid, mounted his throne. Ibrahim 
Pasha immediately after his victory had made ready to 
threaten Constantinople, when despatches from his father 
arrested him. Mehemet wrote that France had promised 
to take the part of Egypt, and to settle all her difficulties 
by diplomacy. 

Meantime the new sultan, or his vizier, having offended 
the Capitan Pasha (or Admiral of the Fleet), that officer 
thought proper to carry the ships under his command over 
to Mehemet Ah. 

It was a proud day for the viceroy when the Turkish 
ships sailed into the harbor of Alexandria. This defection 
of the fleet so discouraged Abdul Medjid that he offered his 
vassal terms of peace, by which he consented to Mehemet's 
hereditary viceroyalty in Egypt, and Ibrahim Pasha's he- 
reditary possession of the pashalik of Syria. 

But the Great Powers would not consent to this dismem- 
berment of the Turkish Empire. A fierce struggle in diplo- 
macy took place between France and England, which might 
have resulted in an open rupture, had not Louis Philippe 
and Marshal Soult (then Minister for Foreign Affairs in 
France) been both averse to war. The old marshal had 
seen more than enough of it, and Louis Philippe felt that 
peace alone could strengthen his party, — the bourgeoisie. 
Mehemet Ali, his rights and his wrongs, seem to have been 
entirely overlooked in the tempest of diplomacy. 

After some weeks of great excitement the Five Great 

1 Louis Blanc, Dix Ans. 



REIGN OF THE CITIZEN KING. 8/ 

Powers agreed among themselves that Mehemet Ah should 
become the Khedive, or hereditary viceroy, of Egypt, but 
that he must g\w& up Syria. To this he demurred, and the 
allied troops attacked Ibrahim Pasha. Admiral Sir Charles 
Napier bombarded his stronghold, St. Jean d'Acre, and 
forced him into submission. The triumph of Lord Palmer- 
ston's policy was complete ; as Charles Greville remarked : 
" Everything has turned out well for him. He is justified 
by the success of his operations, and by the revelations in 
the French Chambers of the intentions of M. Thiers ; and 
it must be acknowledged he has a fair right to plume him- 
self on his diplomacy." 

After the death of Talleyrand, only M. Thiers remained of 
the four great men who had assisted Louis Philippe to attain 
supreme power. M. Thiers was not insensible to the ad- 
vantage it would be to his History of the Consulate and 
Empire, if he could add to it a last and brilliant chapter 
describing the restoration to France of the mortal re- 
mains of her great emperor. Therefore in the early 
part of 1840, before any disturbance of the entente cor- 
diale, he made a request to the English Government for 
the body of Napoleon, then lying beneath a willow-tree 
at Longwood, on a desolate island that hardly seemed 
to be part of the civilized world. Lord Palmerston re- 
sponded very cordially, and Louis Philippe's third son, 
the Prince de Joinville, in his frigate, the " Belle Poule," 
attended by other French war-ships, was despatched 
upon the errand. Napoleon had died May 5, 182 1. 
For almost twenty years his body had reposed at St. 
Helena. With the Prince de Joinville went Bertrand and 
Gourgaud, who had been the Emperor's companions in 
captivity. 

The coffin was raised and opened. The face was per- 
fect. The beard, which had been shaved before the burial, 
had apparently a week's growth. The white satin which 
had lined the lid of the coffin had crumbled into dust, and 
lay like a mist over the body, which was dressed in a green 
uniform, with the cocked hat across its knees. 



8S FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

The corpse was transferred to another coffin brought 
from France^ and was carried over the rough rocks of St. 
Helena by Enghsh soldiers. All the honors that in that 
remote island England could give to her former captive 
were respectfully offered; and early in December, 1840. 
news arrived in Paris that the " Belle Poule " had reached 
Havre. 

This was sooner than her arrival had been looked for, 
and at once all Paris was in a scramble of preparation. 
Laborers and artists worked night and day. The weather 
was piercingly cold. Indeed, no less than three hundred 
English were said to have died of colds contracted on the 
day of the funeral procession. 

The body was landed at Courbevoie from a fiat-bottomed 
barge that had been constructed to bring it up the Seine. 
Courbevoie is about two miles from the Arch of Triumph, 
which is again nearly the same distance from the Place de 
la Concorde. 

Between each gilded lamp-post, with its double burners, 
and beneath long rows of leafless trees, were colossal plaster 
statues of Victory, alternating with colossal vases burning 
incense by day, and inflammable materials for illumination 
by night. Thus the procession attending the body had 
about five miles to march from the place of disembarkation 
to the Invalides, on the left bank of the Seine. The spec- 
tators began to assemble before dawn. All along the route 
scaffoldings had been erected, containing rows upon rows of 
seats. All the trees, bare and leafless at that season, were 
filled with freezing gamins. All the wide pavements were 
occupied. Before long, rows of National Guards fringed the 
whole avenue. They were to fall in behind the procession 
as it passed, and accompany it to the Invalides. 

The arrival of the funeral barge had been retarded while 
the authorities hastened the preparations for its reception. 
When the body of Napoleon was about to re-land on French 
soil, '^ cannon to right of it, cannon to left of it, volleyed and 
thundered." The coffin was received beneath what was 
called a votive monument, — a column one hundred feet in 



REIGN OF THE CITIZEN KING. 89 

height, with an immense gilded globe upon the top, sur- 
mounted by a gilded eagle twenty feet high. Banners and 
tripods were there ad libitum, and a vast plaster bas-relief 
cast in the " Belle Poule's " honor. 

The coffin, having been landed, was placed upon a cata- 
falque, the cannon gave the signal to begin the march, and 
the procession started. The public was given to understand 
that in a sort of funeral casket blazing with gold and purple, 
on the top of the catafalque, twenty feet from the ground, 
was enclosed the coffin of the Emperor ; but it was not 
so. The sailors of the '' Belle Poule " protested that the 
catafalque was too frail, and the height too great. They 
dared not, they said, atttempt to get the lead-lined coffin up 
to the place assigned for it, still less try to get it down again. 
It was consequently deposited, for fear of accident, on a low 
platform between the wheels. 

First came the gendarmes, or mounted police, with 
glittering brazen breastplates, waving horse-hair crests, 
fine horses, and a band of trumpeters ; then the mounted 
Garde Municipale ; then Lancers ; then the Lieutenant- 
General commanding the National Guard of Paris, sur- 
rounded by his staff, and all officers, of whatever grade, then 
on leave in the capital. These were followed by infantry, 
cavalry, sappers and miners. Lancers, and Cuirassiers, staff- 
officers, etc., with bands and banners. Then came a car- 
riage containing the chaplain who had had charge of the 
body from the time it left St. Helena, following whom were a 
crowd of military and naval officers. Next appeared a led 
charger, son of a stallion ridden by Napoleon, and soon 
after came a bevy of the marshals of France. Then all 
the banners of the eighty-six departments, and at last the 
funeral catafalque. 

As it passed under the Arch of Triumph, erected by 
Napoleon in commemoration of his victories, there were 
hundreds in the crowd who expected to see the Emperor 
come to life again. 

Strange to say, the universal cry was " Vive I'empereur ! " 
One heard nowhere " Vive le roi ! " 



90 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

The funeral car was hung with purple gauze embroidered 
with golden bees. As I said, the coffin of the Emperor was 
suffered to repose upon a gilded buckler supported by four 
golden caryatides ; but it was, as the sailors would have said, 
" stowed safely in the hold." 

The catafalque was hung all over with wreaths, emblems, 
and banners. It had solid gilded wheels, and was drawn by 
eight horses covered with green velvet, embroidered with 
gold bees ; each horse was led by a groom in the Bonaparte 
livery. At the four corners of the car, holding the tassels of 
the pall, rode two marshals, an admiral, and General Ber- 
trand, who had shared the captivity of the Emperor. Count 
Montholon was not suffered to leave his imprisonment for 
the occasion, though he also had been a companion of the 
Emperor at St. Helena. Around the catafalque marched the 
five hundred sailors of the " Belle Poule," headed by their 
captain, the Prince de Joinville, — slender, tall, and dark, 
a very naval-looking man. He was supposed to be intensely 
hostile to England, and only to be kept in check by a strong 
hand. Then came all the Emperor's aides-de-camp who 
were still living, and all the aged veterans in Paris who had 
served under him. This was the most touching feature of the 
procession. Many tears were shed by the spectators, and 
a thrill ran through the hearts of eight hundred thousand 
people as the catafalque creaked onward, passing under the 
arch which celebrated Napoleon's triumphs, and beneath 
which at other times no carriage was allowed to pass. But 
enthusiasm rose to the highest point at the sight of the vete- 
rans in every kind of faded uniform, — Grenadiers of the 
Guard, Chasseurs, Dragoons of the Empress, Red Lancers, 
Mamelukes, Poles, and, above all, the Old Guard. "Vive 
la Vieille Garde !" shouted the multitude; "Vive les Polo- 
nais ! Vive I'empereur ! " 

The funeral was a political blunder. It stirred up the 
embers of Napoleonism. Ten years later they blazed into 
a consuming fire. 

The procession passed through the Place de la Concorde, 
beneath the shadow of the obelisk of Luxor, which of old 



REIGN OF THE CITIZEN KING. 91 

had looked on triumphs and funeral processions in Egypt ; 
then it crossed the Seine. On the bridge were eight colossal 
statues, representing prudence, strength, justice, war, agri- 
culture, art, commerce, and eloquence. 

The statues along the Champs Elys^es were Victories, 
each inscribed with the name of some Napoleonic battle. 
Great haste had been required to get them ready. At the last 
moment Government had had to order from certain manu- 
factories pairs of wings by the dozen, and bucklers and 
spears in the same way. All night the artists had been 
fixing these emblems on their statues. A statue of Marshal 
Ney, which had been ordered among those of the other 
marshals, was found to be, not of colossal, but of life size. 
It had to be hurriedly cut into three parts. The deficiency 
in the torso was concealed by flags, and the "bravest of the 
brave " took his place on a par with his comrades. 

On the steps of the Chamber of Deputies was a colossal 
statue of ImmortaHty, designed for the top of the Pantheon, 
but pressed into service on this occasion, holding forth a 
gilded crown as if about to place it on the coffin of the 
Emperor. 

At the gate of the Invalides was another genuine statue, 
Napoleon in his imperial robes was holding forth the cordon 
of the Legion of Honor. This statue had been executed 
for the Pillar at Boulogne commemorative of the Army of 
England. It was surrounded by plaster statues of the depart- 
ments of France, and was approached through a long Hne of 
marshals, statesmen, and the most illustrious of French kings, 
among them Louis XIV., who would have been much aston- 
ished to find himself rendering homage to a soldier of barely 
gentlemanly birth, born on an island which was not French 
in his time. 

The coffin was borne by sailors into the Chapelle Ardente 
at the Invalides. " Sire," said Prince de Joinville to his father, 
'' I present to you the body of the Emperor Napoleon." 

" I receive it in the name of France," repHed the king. 

Then Marshal Soult put the Emperor's sword into the 
king's hand. " General Bertrand," said the king, " I charge 



92 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

you to lay it on the coffin of the Emperor. General Gour- 
gaudj place the Emperor's hat also on the coffin." 

Then began the appropriate religious ceremonies, and 
during the following week the public were admitted to view 
the coffin as it lay in state in the Chapelle Ardente. The 
crowd was very great. Women fainted daily, and many were 
almost pressed to death against the gilded rails. 

After all, there was little to see. The coffin was enclosed 
in a sort of immense cage to keep it from intrusion, the air 
was heavy with incense, and the light was too dimly religious 
to show anything with distinctness. 

A splendid tomb has since been erected to Napoleon in 
the Chapel of the Invalides, where he rests under the care 
of the war-worn soldiers of France. Few now can be living 
who fought under him. Not a Bonaparte was at his funeral ; 
the only one then upon French soil was in a prison. 

Napoleon sleeps where in his will he prayed that his re- 
mains might rest, — on the banks of the Seine. 



CHAPTER V. 

SOME CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1 848. 

A FTER the signing of the treaty of 1841, which restored 
'^~^ the eiite7ite cordiale between France and England, 
and satisfied the other European Powers, Louis Phihppe 
and his family were probably in the plenitude of their pros- 
perity. The Duke of Orleans had been happily married ; 
and although his wife was a Protestant, — which was not 
wholly satisfactory to Queen Marie Amelie, — the character 
of the Duchesse Helene was so lovely that she won all hearts, 
both in her husband's family and among the people. 

On the occasion of the fetes given in Paris at the nuptials 
of the Duke of Orleans, in 1837, the sad presage of mis- 
fortune that had accompanied the marriage festivities of 
Marie Antoinette was repeated. One of the spectacles 
given to the Parisians was a sham attack on a sham cit- 
adel of Antwerp in the Champ de Mars. The crowd was 
immense, but all went well so long as the spectacle lasted. 
When the crowd began to move away, a panic took place. 
The old and the feeble were thrown down and trampled 
on. Twenty-four persons were killed, Xh^ fetes were broken 
up, and all hearts were saddened both by the disaster and 
the omen. 

One part of the festivities on that occasion consisted in 
the opening of the galleries of historical paintings at Ver- 
sailles, — a magnificent gift made by the Citizen King to his 
people. 

I have spoken already of the storming of Constantine. 
No French success since the wars of the Great Napoleon 



94 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

had been so brilliant; yet the Chamber of Deputies, in 
a fit of parsimony, reduced from two thousand to eleven 
hundred dollars the pension proposed by the ministers 
to be settled on the widow of General Damremont, the 
commander-in-chief, who had been killed by a round shot 
while giving orders to scale the walls. At the same time 
they voted two hundred and fifty thousand dollars for the 
year's subsidy to the theatres of Paris for the amusement 
of themselves and their constituents. 

Algeria proved a valuable school for soldiers ; there 
Lamoriciere, Changarnier, Cavaignac, Saint-Arnaud, P^lis- 
sier, and Bugeaud had their military education. Louis 
Philippe's three sons were also with the troops, sharing all 
the duties, dangers, and hardships of the campaign. 

By the end of 1847 Abdul Kader had retired to a strong- 
hold in the mountains, where, seeing that his cause was 
lost, he tendered his submission to the Due d'Aumale, 
then governor of Algeria. The offer was accepted. Abdul 
Kader surrendered on an understanding that he should be 
conducted to some Mohammedan place of refuge, — Alexan- 
dria or St. Jean d'Acre. But this stipulation was disre- 
garded by the French Government, whose breach of faith 
has always been considered a stain on the honor of Louis 
Philippe and his ministers. The Due d'Aumale vehe- 
mently remonstrated, believing his own word pledged to 
the x\rab chieftain. Abdul Kader, his wives, children, ser- 
vants, and principal officers were taken to France, and for 
five years lived at Amboise, where some of the subordinate 
attendants, overcome by homesickness, committed suicide. 
In 1852 Louis Napoleon, who possibly had a fellow-feeling 
for captives, restored Abdul Kader to Hberty, who there- 
upon took up his residence at Damascus. There he 
subsequently protected a large number of Christians from 
massacre, sheltering them in his house, and giving them 
food and clothing. He afterwards removed to the island 
of Ceylon, where, as everywhere else, he won " golden 
opinions " by his generous behavior. 

Meantime, while France was in some respects in the full 



CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 184-8. 95 

tide of prosperity, great discontent was growing up among 
the working-classes, reinforced by the worthless class, always 
ready for disturbances. In May, 1839, Barbes led an 
emeute in Paris which might have proved formidable. His 
attempt opened with a deliberate murder, and there was 
considerable fighting in the streets for about twenty-four 
hours. Barbes was condemned to death. The king was 
desirous to spare him, and yielded readily to the prayers of 
his sister, for whom an opportunity of interceding for him 
was obtained by the good offices of Lamartine. 

The emeute of Barbes was regarded with disfavor by more 
experienced conspirators, but secret societies had intro- 
duced organization among the workmen. Moreover, they 
were led by the bourgeoisie with a cry for parliamentary 
reform, which at that period was the supposed panacea for 
every kind of evil. 

The king was not popular. He was not the ideal French- 
man. He was a Frenchman of the epicier, or small grocer, 
type. As a bon ph-e de famille he was anxious to settle his 
sons well in life. They were admirable young men, they 
deserved good wives, and as far as grace, beauty, and ami- 
ability went, they all obtained them; but up to 1846 not 
one of them had made a brilliant marriage. This good 
fortune Louis Philippe hoped was reserved for his two 
younger sons, — D'Aumale and Montpensier. 

The Duke of Orleans was the most popular of the king's 
sons. Handsome, elegant, accomplished, and always care- 
ful in his toilet, he was a thorough Frenchman^ — the ap- 
proved type of an aristocrat with liberal sympathies and 
ideas. He was born at Palermo in 18 10, and did not come 
to France till he was four years old. He had an excellent 
tutor, who prepared him for his college. There he took his 
place entirely on a par with other boys, and gained several 
prizes. All Louis Philippe's sons were sent to pubhc 
schools. 

The duke afterwards prepared for and entered the Poly- 
technic, which is said to demand more hard study than 
any other school in the world. He made his first campaign 



g6 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

in Africa in 1835, and afterwards served with distinction 
in the early part of that one which resulted in the retreat 
from Constantine ; but before Constantine was reached, a 
severe illness invalided him. He was a liberal in politics, 
the sincere friend of the working-classes, and was on inti- 
mate terms with men of letters, even with Victor Hugo, in 
spite of his advanced opinions. He was a patron of art 
and artists. Some beautiful table-pieces that he had or- 
dered, by Barye, are now in the gallery of Mr. W. S. Walters, 
of Baltimore, they not having been completed when he died. 
His wife charmed every one by her good sense, grace, and 
goodness. They had had four years of happy married life, 
and had two little sons, when, in July, 1842, the duchess 
went for her health to the baths of Plombieres, in the 
mountains of the Vosges. Her husband escorted her 
thither, and then returned to Paris, on his way to at- 
tend some military manoeuvres near Boulogne. 

As he was driving out to Neuilly to make his adieux 
to his family, the horses of his carriage were startled by an 
organ-grinder on the Avenue de Neuilly. The duke, who 
was alone, tried apparently to jump out of the carriage. 
Had he remained seated, all would have been well. He 
fell on his head on the pave of the broad avenue, breaking 
the vertebral column. 

He was carried into a small grocer's shop by the way- 
side, where afterwards a Httle chapel was erected by his 
family. Messengers were sent to the Chateau de Neuilly, 
and his father, mother, and sisters, without bonnets or hats, 
came rushing to the spot. He lived, unconscious, for four 
hours. A messenger was despatched at once to bring his 
wife from Plombieres. She had just finished dressing for 
dinner, in full toilet, when the news reached her. Without 
changing her dress, she started instantly for Paris, but when 
she reached it, her husband was in his coffin. 

When his will was opened, it was found to contain an 
earnest exhortation to his son that, whether he proved 
" one of those tools that Heaven fits for work, but does not 
use," or ascended the French throne, he " should always 



CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1848. 97 

hold in his heart, above all things, love to F'rance, and fidel- 
ity to the principles of the French Revolution." 

Here is the poor Queen Amelie's account of the death of 
her son, written to a dear friend four days after : — 

" My Chartres,! my beloved son, he whose birth made all my 
happiness, whose infancy and growing years were all my occu- 
pation, whose youth was my pride and consolation, and who 
would, as I hoped, be the prop of my old age, no longer lives. 
He has been taken from us in the midst of completed happi- 
ness, and of the happiest prospects of the future, whilst each 
day he gained in virtue, in understanding, in wisdom, following 
the footsteps of his noble and excellent father. He was more 
than a son to me, — he was my best friend. And God has taken 
him from me ! ... On the 2d of July he and Helene left for 
Plombieres, where the latter was to take the baths. He was, 
after establishing her there, to come back and spend a few days 
at the camp of St.-Omer, there to take command of an army 
corps, which was intended to execute great military manoeuvres 
on the Marne, and which had been the object of his thoughts 
and employments for a year past. Accordingly, on the 9th he 
returned from Plombieres, and came to dine with us at Neuilly, 
full of the subject of the elections, and talking of them with that 
warmth of heart and intellect which was apparent in all he did. 
Next day — my fete day — he came, contrary to his usual cus- 
tom, with an enormous bouquet, telhng me it was given in the 
name of the whole family. He heard mass, and breakfasted 
with us. He was so cheerful. He sat beside me at dinner. 
He got up, drank my health with much vivacity, and made the 
band play a particular tune, — in my honor, as he said. Who 
would have thought that this was the last time this dear child 
was to show me so much affection! On the nth he again re- 
turned to dinner with us, much occupied all the time with the 
camp and the elections. . . . 

" On the T2th he arrived about four o'clock in his country suit. 
We conversed together about the health of Helene, which was 
a subject of anxiety, about Clementine's marriage, which he 
earnestly desired; about the elections and many other subjects, 
the discussion of which he always ended with the refrain : ' In 
short, dear Majesty, we finish as usual by agreeing in all impor- 
tant particulars.' And it was very true. 

1 It was his first title before his father came to the throne. His 
mother always continued to use it. 

7 



98 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CEATTURY, 

" After dinner we took a turn in the park, he and Victoirey 
Clementine, D'Aumale, and I. Never had he been, so gay, so 
brilliant, so affectionate. He spoke to me of his arrangements 
for the troops, of the time when the king was to go with us to 
Ste.-Menehoulde, of the time that he would spend there, and 
of his own daily occupations. He looked forward to giving his 
father a representation of the battle of Valmy. I gave him my 
arm, saying : ' Come, dear prop of my old age ! ' And the next 
day he was to be alive no longer ! 

" We returned to the drawing-room a little late. A great 
many people had arrived. He remained with us talking until 
ten o'clock, when on going away he came to bid me good-night. 
I gave him my hand, and said : ' You will come and see us to- 
morrow before going away ? ' He replied : ' Perhaps so.' 

"On the next day, July 13, about eleven o'clock, we were 
about to get into the carriage to go to the Tuileries. As I fol- 
lowed the king to the red drawing-room, I saw Troussart, the 
commissary of police, with a terrified countenance whispering 
something to General Gourgaud, who made a gesture of horror, 
and went to speak in a low voice to the king. The king cried 
out : ' Oh, my God ! ' Then I cried : ' Something has happened 
to one of my children I Let nothing be kept from me ! ' The 
king replied : ' Yes, my dear ; Chartres has had a fall on his 
way here, and has been carried into a house at Sablonville.' 
Hearing this, I began to run like a madwoman, in spite of the 
cries of the king and the remonstrances of M. de Chabannes, 
who followed me. But my strength was not equal to my im- 
pulses, and on getting as far as the farm, I was exhausted. 
Happily the king came up in the carriage with my sister, and I 
got in with them. Our carriage stopped. We got out in haste, 
and went into the cabaret, where in a small room, stretched 
upon a mattress on the floor, we found Chartres, who was at 
that moment being bled. . . . The death-rattle had begun. 
• What is that ? ' said the king to me. I replied : ' Mon ami^ 
this is death. For pity's sake let some one fetch a priest, that 
my poor child may not die like a dog ! ' and I went for a mo- 
ment into a little side room, where I fell on my knees and im- 
plored God from my inmost soul, if He needed a victim, to take 
me and spare so dear a child. . . . 

" Dr. Pasquier arrived soon after. I said to him : ' Sir, you are 
a man of honor ; if you think the danger imminent, I beseech 
you tell me so, that my child may receive extreme unction.' He 
hung his head, and said : ' Madame, it is true.' 

" The aire oi Neuilly came and administered the sacrament 
while we were all on our knees around the pallet, weeping and 



CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF IS48. 99 

praying. I unloosed from my neck a small cross containing a 
fragment of the True Cross, and I put it into the hand of my 
poor child, that God the Saviour might have pity on him in his 
passage into eternity. Dr. Pasquier got up and whispered to 
the king. Then that venerable and unhappy father, his face 
bathed in tears, knelt by the side of his eldest son, and tenderly 
embracing him, cried : ' Oh that it were I instead of thee ! ' I 
also drew near and kissed him three times, — once for myself, 
once for H^lene, and once for his children. I laid upon his Hps 
the little cross, the symbol of our redemption, and then placed 
it on his heart and left it there. The whole family kissed him 
by turns, and then each returned to his place. . . . His breath- 
ing now became irregular. Twice it stopped, and then went on. 
I asked that the priest might come back and say the prayers 
for the dying. He had scarcely knelt down and made the sign 
of the cross-, when my dear child drew a last deep breath, and 
his beautiful, good, generous, and noble soul left his body. . . . 
The priest at my request said a De proftindis. The king wanted 
to lead me away, but I begged him to allow me to embrace for 
the last time my beloved son, the object of my deepest tender- 
ness. I took his dear head in my hands ; I kissed his cold and 
discolored lips ; I placed the little cross again upon them, and 
then carried it away, bidding a last farewell to him whom I 
loved so well, — perhaps too well ! 

'^The king led me into the next room. I fell on his neck. 
We were unhappy together. Our irreparable loss was common 
to us both, and I suffered as much for him as for myself. There 
was a crowd in that little room. I wept and talked wildly, and 
I was beside myself, I recognized no one but the unhappy 
Marshal Gerard, the extent of whose misfortune I then under- 
stood. 1 After a few minutes they said that all was ready. The 
body had been placed on a stretcher covered with a white cloth. 
It was borne by four men of the house, attended by two gen- 
darmes. They went out through the stable-yard ; there was an 
immense crowd outside. . . . We all followed on foot the inan- 
imate body of this dear son, who a few hours before had passed 
over the same road full of life, strength, and happiness. . . . 
Thus we carried him, and laid him down in our dear little cha- 
pel, where four days before he had heard mass with the whole 
family." 

The death of the Duke of Orleans was the severest blow 
that could have fallen on Louis Philippe, not only as a 
1 Marshal Gerard was then mourning for his son. 



100 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

father, but as head of a dynasty. The duke left two infant 
sons, — the Comte de Paris and the Due de Chartres. The 
former is now both the Orleanist and Legitimist pretender 
to the French throne. 

In the early part of 1 845 Louis Philippe, who had already 
visited Windsor and been cordially received there, was vis- 
ited in return at his Chateau d'Eu by Queen Victoria and 
Prince Albert, accompanied by Lord Aberdeen, then Eng- 
lish Minister for Foreign Affairs. The king's reception of 
the young queen was most paternal. He kissed her like a 
father, and did everything in his power to make her visit 
pleasant. Among the subjects discussed during the visit 
was the question of "the Spanish marriages." 

The unfortunate Queen of Spain, Isabella IL, was just 
sixteen years old ; her sister, the Infanta Luisa, was a year 
younger. Isabella was the daughter of a vicious race, and 
with such a mother as she had in Queen Christina, she had 
grown up to early womanhood utterly ignorant and un- 
trained. One of her ministers said of her that " no one 
could be astonished that she had vices, but the wonder was 
that she had by nature so many good qualities." Jolly, 
kindly, generous, a rebel against etiquette, and an habitual 
breaker of promises, she was long popular in Spain, in 
spite of a career of dissoluteness only equalled by that of 
Catherine of Russia. 

In 1846, however, she had not shown this tendency, and 
in the hands of a good husband might have made as good 
a wife and as respectable a woman as her sister Luisa has 
since proved. 

There were many candidates for the honor of Queen 
Isabella's hand. Louis Philippe sent his sons D'Aumale and 
Montpensier to Madrid to try their fortunes ; but England 
objected strongly to an alliance which might make Spain 
practically a part of France. The candidature of the 
French princes was therefore withdrawn. 

A prince of the CathoHc branch of the Coburgs was 
then proposed, — Prince Ferdinand, who made subsequently 
an excellent king-consort in Portugal ; but to him France 



CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF IS48. lOI 

objected, as too nearly allied to the English Crown. Finally 
the suitors were reduced to three, — the queen's cousin 
Enrique (Henry), a rough sailor of rather radical opinions 
and turbulent ways; the Comte de Trepani, a Neapolitan 
prince, a man of small understanding ; and another cousin, 
Don Francisco d' Assis, a creature weak alike in mind and 
body, whom it was an outrage to think of as fit mate for 
a young queen. England was willing to consent to the 
queen's marrying any one of these princes, and also 
that the Due de Montpensier should marry the Infanta 
Luisa, provided that the queen was first married and had 
had a child. All this was fully agreed upon in the confer- 
ence at Eu. But Christina, the queen-mother, who had 
been plundering the Spanish treasury till she had accumu- 
lated an enormous fortune, offered, if Louis Philippe would 
use his influence to prevent any inquiry into the state of her 
affairs, to further his views as to the Due de Montpensier. 

It seems more hke a scene in the Middle Ages than an 
actual transaction in our own century, that at midnight, in 
a Spanish palace, a dissolute Italian dowager and a French 
ambassador should have been engaged in coercing a sover- 
eign of sixteen into a detested marriage. As morning 
dawned, the sobbing girl had given her consent to marry 
Don Francisco, and the ambassador of Louis Philippe, pale 
from the excitement of his vigil, left the palace to send 
word of his disgraceful victory to his master. The Due 
de Montpensier, who was in waiting on the frontier, soon 
arrived in Madrid, and Isabella and Luisa were married on 
the same day ; while M. Guizot, who was head of the French 
Government, and Louis Phihppe excused their breach of 
faith to the queen of England by saying that Queen 
Isabella was married before her sister, though on the 
same morning. 

Isabella at once banished her unwelcome husband to a 
country seat, and flung herself headlong into disgraceful 
excesses. 

Queen Victoria was greatly hurt by the treachery dis- 
played by Louis Philippe and his minister, and doubtless, 



I02 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

as a woman, she was deeply sorry for the young queen. 
Louis PhiHppe not only lost credit, popularity, and the sup- 
port he derived from the personal friendship of the Queen 
and the Prince Consort of England, but he obtained no 
chance of the throne of Spain for his son by his wicked 
devices ; for Queen Isabella, far from being childless, had 
three daughters and a son. The latter, subsequently Alfonso 
XII., married, in spite of much opposition, his lovely cousin 
Mercedes, daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Mont- 
pensier. She died a few months after her marriage, so that 
no son or grandson of Louis Philippe will be permitted 
by Providence to mount the Spanish throne. 

The affair of the Spanish marriages, the quarrel it in- 
volved with Queen Victoria, and the loss to Louis Philippe 
of personal honor, had a great effect upon him ; he became 
irritable and obstinate, and at the same time weak of will. 

Troubles multiplied around him. Things with which he 
had nothing whatever to do increased his unpopularity, and 
the secret societies kept discontents alive. Everything that 
went wrong in France was charged upon the king and the 
royal family. 

One of the great families in France was that of Choiseul- 
Praslin. The head of it in Louis Philippe's time was a 
duke who had married Fanny, daughter of Marshal Se- 
bastiani, an old officer of Napoleon and a great favorite 
with Louis Philippe. The Due de PrasHn had given in 
his adhesion to the Orleans dynasty, while so many old 
families stood aloof, and was in consequence made an 
officer in the Duchess of Orleans' household. The Due 
and Duchesse de Praslin had ten children. The duchess 
was a stout, matronly little woman, rather pretty, with 
strong affections and a good deal of sentiment. Several 
times she had had cause to complain of her husband, and 
did complain somewhat vehemently to her own family ; but 
their matrimonial differences had always been made up by 
Marshal Sebastiani. The world considered them a happy 
married pair. 

After seventeen years of married life a governess was 



CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION- OF ms. 1 03 

engaged for the nine daughters, a Mademoiselle Henriette 
de Luzy. She was a Parisian by birth, but had been edu- 
cated in England, had English connections, and spoke 
English fluently. She was one of those women who make 
a favorable impression upon every one brought into per- 
sonal contact with them. Soon the children adored her, 
and it was not long before the duke had come under the 
same spell. The duchess found herself completely isolated 
in her own household ; husband and children had alike 
gone over to this stranger. The duchess wrote pathetic 
letters to her husband, pleading her own affection for him, 
and her claims as a wife and a mother. These letters no 
doubt exasperated the duke, but we read them with deep 
pity for her whose heart they lay bare. 

It is to be understood that there was apparently no 
scandal — that is, scandal in the usual sense — in the 
relations between the duke and Mademoiselle de Luzy. 
She had simply bewitched a weak man who had grown 
tired of his wife, and had cast the same spell over his 
children ; and she had not the superiority of character which 
would have led her to throw up a lucrative situation because 
she was making a wife and mother (whom doubtless she 
considered very unreasonable) extremely unhappy. 

At last things came to such a pass that Madame de 
Praslin appealed to her father, insisting on a legal sepa- 
ration from her husband. The marshal intervened, and 
the affair was compromised. Mademoiselle de Luzy was to 
be honorably discharged, and the duchess was to renounce 
her project of separation. Mademoiselle de Luzy there- 
fore gave up her situation, and went to board in a pension 
in Paris with her old schoolmistress. Madame de Praslin 
went to her country house, the magnificent Chateau de 
Vaux, where she herself undertook the education of her 
children ; but in their estimation she by no means replaced 
Mademoiselle de Luzy, whom from time to time they visited 
in company with their father. 

In the middle of the summer of 1847 i^ '^vas arranged 
that the whole family should go to the seaside, and they 



104 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

came up to Paris to pass one night in the Faubourg Saint- 
Honore at the Hotel S^bastiani. Like most French estab- 
lishments, the Hotel Sebastian! was divided between the 
marshal and his daughter, the old marshal occupying 
one floor during the winter, the duke and duchess, with 
their family, the one above it, while the servants of both 
establishments had their sleeping-rooms under the roof. 
The house was of gray stone, standing back in a yard; 
the French call such a situation entre cour et jardin. The 
duke had been in Paris several times during the previous 
week, and had occupied his own rooms, *where the con- 
cierge and his wife — the only servants left in the house — 
had remarked that he seemed very busy. 

It was afterwards reported in the neighborhood, but I do 
not think the circumstance was ever officially brought out, 
that the police found subsequently that all the screws but 
one that held up the heavy tester over the bed of the 
duchess, had been removed, and the holes filled with wax ; 
it is certain that the duke partly unscrewed the bolt that 
fastened the door of her dressing-room. 

On the evening of the family's arrival in Paris, the father 
and children went in a carriage to see Mademoiselle de 
Luzy. She told the duke that she could get a good situ- 
ation, provided the duchess would give her a certificate of 
good conduct ; and the duke at parting promised to obtain 
it for her. 

The whole family went to bed early, that they might be 
ready to start for the seaside betimes upon the morrow. 
The children's rooms were in a wing of the building, at 
some distance from the chambers of their father and 
mother. The concierge and his wife slept in their lodge. 
Towards one o'clock in the morning they were awakened 
by screams ; but they lay still, imagining that the noise 
came from the Champs Elysees. Then they heard the 
loud ringing of a bell, and starting from their bed, rushed 
into the main building. The noise had proceeded from 
the duchess's chamber. They knocked at the door, but 
there was no answer, only low moans. They consulted 



CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1848. 1 05 

together, and then roused the maid and valet, who were 
sleeping in the attic chambers. Again they knocked, and 
there was no answer. The valet then went to the duke's 
room, which looked upon the garden and communicated 
with the dressing-room of the duchess by a balcony and 
window as well as by the door. The duke opened the 
door of his chamber. He was in his dressing-gown. When 
he heard what was the matter, he went at once through the 
window into the duchess's chamber. There a scene of 
carnage unparalleled, I think, in the history of murder met 
their eyes. The duchess was lying across her bed, not yet 
quite dead, but beyond the power of speech. There were 
more than forty wounds on her body. She must have 
struggled desperately. The walls were bloody, the bell- 
rope was bloody, and the floor was bloody. The night- 
dress of the duchess was saturated with blood. Her hands 
were cut almost to pieces, as if she had grasped the blade 
of the knife that killed her. The furniture was overturned 
in all parts of the room.^ 

At once the valet and the concierge ran for the police, 
for members of the family, and for a doctor. The duke 
retired to his dressing-room. One of the gentlemen who 
first arrived was so sickened by the sight of the bloody 
room that he begged for a glass of water. The valet 
ran for the nearest water at hand, and abruptly entered 
the duke's dressing-room. He had a glass with him, and 
was going to fill it from a pail standing near, when the 
duke cried out : " Don't touch it ; it is dirty : " and at 
once emptied the contents out of the window, but not 
before the valet had seen that the water was red with blood. 
This roused his suspicions, and when all the servants in the 
house were put under arrest, he said quietly to the police : 
''You had better search the duke's dressing-room." 

When this was done there could be no more doubt. 
Three fancy daggers were found, one of which had always 
hung in the chamber of the duchess. All of them were 

1 We were then living near the Hotel Sebastini. The excitement 
in the neighborhood the next morning is indescribable. 



I06 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Stained with blood. The duke had changed his clothes, 
and had tried to wash those he took off in the pail whose 
bloody water he had thrown away. Subsequently it was 
conjectured that his purpose had been to stab his wife in 
her sleep, and then by a strong pull to bring down upon her 
the heavy canopy. The bolt he had unscrewed permitted 
him at dead of night quietly to enter her chamber. 

The police were puzzled as to how they ought to treat 
the murderer. As he was a peer of France, they could not 
legally arrest him without authority from the Chamber of 
peers, or from the king. The royal family was at Dreux. 
The king was appealed to at once, and immediately gave 
orders to arrest the duke and to summon the peers for his 
trial. But meantime the duke, who had been guarded by 
the police in his own chamber, had contrived to take 
poison. He took such a quantity of arsenic that his 
stomach rejected it. He did not die at once, but lingered 
several days, and was carried to prison at the Luxembourg, 
where the poison killed him by inches. He died untried, 
having made no confession. 

His son, who was very young at the time of his parents' 
death, married an American lady when he grew to man- 
hood. It was a long courtship, for the young duke's in- 
come went largely to keep in repair his famous Chateau de 
Vaux, where Fouquet had entertained Louis XIV. with regal 
magnificence. Finally a purchaser was found for the an- 
cestral seat ; and relieved of the obligations it involved, the 
duke married, and retired to his estates in Corsica. 

As to Mademoiselle de Luzy, she was tried for complicity 
in the murder of the duchess, and acquitted. There was 
no evidence whatever against her. But popular feeling 
concerning her as the inciting cause of the poor duchess's 
death was so strong that by the advice of her pastor — the 
Protestant M. Coquerel — she changed her name and came 
to America. She brought letters of introduction to a family 
in Boston, who procured her a situation as governess in 
Connecticut. There she soon after married a Congrega- 
tional minister. 



CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION OF 18^8. 10/ 

It seems hard to imagine how such a tragedy could have 
borne its part among the causes of Louis PhiHppe's down- 
fall; but those who look into Alison or Lamartine will 
see it set down as one of the events which greatly assisted 
in bringing about the revolution of February. Mobs, 
like women, are often swayed by persons rather than by 
principles. 

It was believed by the populace that court favor had pre- 
vented the duke from going to prison like any common 
criminal, and that the same influence had procured him the 
poison by which he escaped a public execution. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE DOWNFALL OF LOUIS PHILIPPE. 

A S I said in the last chapter, everything in the year 
S\. 1847 ^^^ during the opening weeks of 1848 seemed 
unfavorable to Louis Philippe. Besides the causes of dis- 
satisfaction I have mentioned, there was a scarcity of grain, 
there were drains on the finances, there was disaffection 
among the National Guard, and hostility among the peers 
to the measures of the Ministry. Then came the conviction 
of M. Teste, a member of the Cabinet, for misappropriating 
public funds. Even private affairs seemed turned against 
the royal family. Madame Lafarge murdered her husband, 
and it was said that the court had attempted to procure 
her acquittal because she was connected with the house of 
Orleans by a bar-sinister. A quarrel about an actress led 
to a duel. The man wounded was a journalist who was 
actively opposed to the king's Government. It was hinted 
that the duel was a device of the court to get him put out 
of the way. But the greatest of the king's misfortunes was 
the death of his admirable sister, Madame Adelaide, in 
January, 1848. She had been all his life his bosom friend 
and his chief counsellor. She died of a severe attack of 
influenza. 

In a letter from the Prince de Joinville to the Due de 
Nemours, found in the garden of the Tuileries in Feb- 
ruary, 1848, among many valuable documents that had 
been flung from the windows of the palace by the mob, 
the situation of things at the close of 1847 and the begin- 
ning of 1848 is thus summed up by one brother writing 
in confidence to another : — 



THE DOWNFALL OF LOUIS PHILIPPE. 109 

" The king will listen to no advice. His own will must be 
paramount over everything. It seems to me impossible that in 
the Chamber of Deputies at the next session the anomalous 
state of the government should fail to attract attention. It has 
effaced all traces of constitutional government, and has put for- 
ward the king as the primary, and indeed sole, mover upon all 
occasions. There is no longer any respect for ministers ; their 
responsibility is null, everything rests with the king. He has 
arrived at an age when he declines to listen to suggestions. He 
is accustomed to govern, and he loves to show that he does so. 
His immense experience, his courage, and his great qualities 
lead him to face danger; but it is not on that account the less 
real or imminent." 

Then, after further summing up the state of France, — the 
finances embarrassed, the entente cordiale with England at 
an end, and the provinces in confusion, — the prince adds : 
"Those unhappy Spanish marriages! — we have not yet 
drained the cup of bitterness they have mixed for us to 
drink." 

In this state of things the opposition party was divided 
into liberals who wished for reform, and liberals who 
aimed at revolution. For a while the two parties worked 
together, and their war-cry was Reform ! There was little 
or no parliamentary opposition, for the Chamber of Peers 
and the Chamber of Deputies were alike virtually chosen 
by the Crown. The population of France in 1848 was 
thirty-five millions ; but those entitled to vote were only two 
hundred and forty thousand, or one to every one hundred 
and forty-six of the population, and of these a large part 
were in Government employ. It was said that the number 
of places in the gift of the Ministry was sixty-three thou- 
sand, every place, from that of a guard upon a railroad to 
that of a judge upon the bench, being disposed of by minis- 
terial favor. 

The plan adopted to give expression to the public dis- 
content was the inauguration of reform banquets. To these 
large crowds were attracted, both from political motives 
and from a desire in the rural districts to hear the great 
speakers, Lamartine and others, who had a national renown. 



no FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, 

Many of the speeches were inflammatory. The health of 
the king was never drunk on these occasions, but the " Mar- 
seillaise " was invariably played. 

Seventy-four of these banquets had been given in the 
provinces, when it was decided to give one in Paris ; and a 
large inclosed piece of ground on the Rue Chaillot, not far 
from the Arch of Triumph, was fixed upon for the pur- 
pose. This banquet was to take place on Tuesday, Feb. 22, 
1848. Until Monday afternoon opinions seemed divided 
as to whether it would be suffered to go on. But mean- 
time the city had been crammed with troops, and the sleep 
of its inhabitants had been broken night after night by the 
tramp of regiments and the rumble of artillery. Monday, 
February 21, was a beautiful day, the air was soft and genial, 
the streets and the Champs Elysees were very gay. Scarcely 
any one was aware at that time that it was the intention of 
the Government to forbid the banquet ; but that night the 
preparations made for it were carted away by order of the 
liberal leaders, who had been warned of the decision of the 
authorities, while at the same time every loose paving-stone 
that might help to erect a barricade was, by orders from the 
police, removed out of the way. 

When morning dawned, a proclamation, forbidding the 
banquet, was posted on every street-corner. The soldiers 
were everywhere confined to their quarters, the windows of 
which were stuffed with mattresses ; but to residents in Paris 
the day seemed to pass quietly, though about noon the 
Place de la Madeleine was full of men surrounding the 
house of Odillon Barrot, the chief leader of the opposition, 
demanding what, under the circumstances, they had better 
do. In the Place de la Concorde, troops were endeavoring 
to prevent the crowd from crossing the Seine and assem- 
bling in front of the Chamber of Deputies. In order to 
break up the throng upon the bridge, a heavy wagon was 
driven over it at a rapid pace, escorted by soldiers, who 
slashed about them with their sheathed swords. At the 
residence of M. Guizot, then both Prime Minister and Min- 
ister for Foreign Affairs, a large crowd had assembled and 



THE DOWNFALL OF LOUIS PHILIPFE. m 

had broken his windows ; but the rioters were dispersed by 
the Municipal Guard and the Pohce. 

In the afternoon, on the Place de la Concorde, a party of 
men and boys, apparently without leaders, contrived to 
break through the troops guarding the bridge, and began to 
ascend the steps of the Chamber of Deputies. Being re- 
fused admission to the hall, they proceeded to break win- 
dows and do other damage. Then a party of dragoons 
began to clear the bridge, but good-humoredly, and the 
people were retiring as fast as they might, when a detach- 
ment of the Municipal Guard arrived. The Municipal 
Guard was a handsome corps of mounted police, the men 
being all stalwart and fine-looking. They wore brazen hel- 
mets and horse-tails and glittering breastplates, but they 
were very unpopular, while the National Guards were looked 
on by the rioters as their supporters. The Municipal 
Guards, when they came upon the bridge, began treating 
the crowd roughly, a good many persons were hurt, and an 
old woman was trodden down. At this the crowd grew 
furious, stones were thrown, and the soldiers drew their 
swords. Before nightfall there was riot and disorder all 
over Paris. Towards dusk the 7'appel — the signal for the 
National Guard to muster — had been beaten in the streets, 
and soon many soldiers of that body might be seen, escorted 
by men in blouses carrying their guns, while the National 
Guards, unarmed, were shouting and singing. 

All Tuesday, February 22, the affair was a mere riot. But 
during the night the secret societies met, and decided on 
more formidable action. 

The next morning was chilly and rainy, very dispiriting 
to the troops, who had bivouacked all night in the pubhc 
squares, where they had been ill-provided with food 
and forage. The coats and swords of the students at the 
Polytechnic had been removed during the night, to pre- 
vent their joining the bands who were singing the " Mar- 
seillaise " and the " Dernier Chant des Girondins " under 
their windows. 

Meantime barricades had been raised in the thickly 



112 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

populated parts of Paris, and successful efforts had been 
made to enlist the sympathies of the soldiers and the 
National Guard. 

During the early hours of Wednesday, the 23d, reports of 
these disaffections succeeded each other rapidly at the 
Tuileries, and a council was held in the king's cabinet, to 
which the queen and the princes were invited. The king 
spoke of resigning his crown, adding that he was " fortunate 
in being able to resign it." " But you cannot abdicate, mon 
ami,^'' said the queen. " You owe yourself to France. The 
demand made is for the resignation of the Ministry. M. 
Guizot should resign, and I feel sure that being the man of 
honor that he is, he will do so in this emergency." 

M. Guizot and his colleagues at once gave in their resig- 
nations. The king wept as he embraced them, bidding 
them farewell. Count Mole was then called in and re- 
quested to form a ministry. Before he could do so, how- 
ever, things had grown worse, and M. Thiers, instead of 
Count M0I6, was made head of the Cabinet. He insisted 
that Odillon Barrot, the day before very popular with the 
insurgents, must be his colleague. The king declined to 
assent to this. To put Odillon Barrot into power, he said, 
was virtually to abandon the policy of his reign. 

But before this matter was decided, there had occurred 
a lamentable massacre at the gates of the residence of M. 
Guizot, the Minister for Foreign Affairs. The building had 
been surrounded by a fierce crowd, composed mainly of 
working-men from the Faubourg Saint- Antoine. Some con- 
fusion was occasioned by the restlessness of a horse belong- 
ing to an officer in command of a squad of cavalry detailed 
to defend the building. The leader of the mob fired a 
pistol. The soldiers responded with a volley from their 
carbines. Fifty of the crowd were killed. The bodies 
were piled by the mob upon a cart and paraded through 
Paris, the corpse of a half-naked woman lying conspicuously 
among them. The sight everywhere woke threats of 
vengeance. 

The king, when he heard of this, yielded. Odillon Bar- 



THE DOWNFALL OF LOULS PHLLIPPE. I13 

rot was associated with M. Thiers, and Marshal Bugeaud was 
placed in command of the military. 

M. Thiers' foible was omniscience ; and to Bugeaud's 
amazement, amusement, and indignation he insisted on in- 
specting his military plans and giving his advice concerning 
them. Happily the marshal's plans met with the approval 
of the minister, and the commander-in-chief went to 
his post; while Odillon Barrot, accompanied by Horace 
Vernet, the painter, went forth into the streets to inform 
the insurgents that their demand for reform had been 
granted, that the obnoxious ministers had been dismissed, 
and that all power was made over to himself and to his 
colleagues. 

Marshal Bugeaud found everything in wild confusion at 
the War Office ; but was restoring order, and had marched 
four columns of troops through Paris without serious op- 
position, when he received orders from M. Thiers that not 
another shot was to be fired by the soldiers. The marshal 
replied that he would not obey such orders unless he re- 
ceived them from the king. The Due de Nemours therefore 
signed the paper in the name of his father, and soon after- 
wards a new proclamation was posted on the walls : — 

Citizens ! An order has been ' given to suspend all firing. 
We are charged by the king to form a ministry. The Chamber 
is about to be dissolved. General Lamoriciere has been ap- 
pointed Commander-in-Chief of the National Guard. Mes- 
sieurs Odillon Barrot, Thiers, Lamoriciere, and Duvergier de 
Haurannes are ministers. Our watchwords are, — Order, 
Union, Reform ! 

(Signed) Odillon Barrot. 

Thiers. 

This proclamation may be said to have been the begin- 
ning of the end. The soldiers were disgusted ; supporters 
of the monarchy lost heart ; the secret societies now felt that 
the game was in their hands. By that time barricades with- 
out number, it was said, had been thrown up in the streets. 
The suburbs of Paris were cut off from the capital. During 
the previous night, arms had been everywhere demanded 



114 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

from private houses ; but in obtaining them the insurgents 
endeavored to inspire no unnecessary terror. One lady in 
the Enghsh quarter was found kneehng by the bedside of 
her dying child. When a party of armed men entered 
the chamber they knelt down, joined their prayers to hers 
for the soul that was departing, and then quitted the room 
in silence, placing a guard and v/riting over the door in 
chalk : " Respect this house, for death is here." 

By nine o'clock on Wednesday morning the troops, dis- 
gusted by the order which forbade them to defend them- 
selves, reversed their arms and fraternized with the people, 
the officers sheathing their swords. 

A little later, Odillon Barrot, who supposed himself to be 
the people's favorite, rode along the Boulevard to proclaim to 
the rioters that he was now their minister, and that the cause 
of reform was assured. He was met with cries of " Never 
mind him ! We have no time to hear him ! Too late, too 
late ! We know all he has to say ! " About the same time 
the Ecole Militaire was taken ; but a guard en blouse was 
posted to protect the apartments of the ladies of the gov- 
ernor. The fight before the Palais Royal occurred about 
noon. The palace, which was the private property of Louis 
Philippe, was sacked, and many valuable works of art were 
destroyed. 

The royal family were sitting down to breakfast about 
midday when a party of gentlemen, among them M. Emile 
de Girardin, made their way into the Tuileries, imploring 
the king to abdicate at once and spare further bloodshed. 
Without a word, Louis Philippe drew pen and paper towards 
him and wrote his abdication. Embracing his grandson, 
the little Corate de Paris, he went out, saying to the gentle- 
men about him : " This child is your king." 

Through the Pavilion de I'Horloge, the main entrance 
to the Tuileries, came a party of dragoons, leading their 
horses down the marble steps into the gardens. The victo- 
rious blouses already filled the inner court, the Place du Car- 
rousel. The royal family, slenderly attended, followed the 
king. The crowd poured into the Tuileries on the side of 



THE DOWNFALL OF LOUIS PHILIPPE. II5 

the Carrousel as the royal family quitted it through the 
gardens. 

In the Place de la Concorde, beneath the old Egyptian 
obelisk which had witnessed so many changes in this 
troubled world, they found two cabs in waiting. The king 
and queen entered one, with several of the children. Into 
the second stepped the Duchesse de Nemours, the Princess 
Clementine, and an attendant. Some persons in the crowd 
who recognized them, cried out : " Respect old age ! Re- 
spect misfortune ! " And when an officer in attendance 
called out to the crowd not to hurt the king, he was 
answered : " Do you take us for assassins ? Let him get 
away ! " 

This, indeed, was the general feeling. Only a few persons 
ventured to insult the royal family. The coachmen, how- 
ever, drove off in such haste that the Spanish princess, 
Luisa, Duchesse de Montpensier, was left alone upon the side- 
walk, weeping bitterly. A Portuguese gentleman gave her 
his arm, and took her in search of her husband's aide- 
de-camp. General Thierry. With several other gentlemen, 
who formed a guard about her, they passed back into the 
garden of the Tuileries, where M. Jules de Lasteyrie, the 
grandson of Lafayette, took possession of the duchess and 
escorted her to his own house. From thence, a few days 
later, he forwarded her to the coast, where she rejoined her 
husband. 

When the king quitted the Tuileries he was urged to 
leave behind him a paper conferring the regency on the 
Duchess of Orleans. He refused positively. " It would 
be contrary to law," he said ; " and I have never yet done 
anything, thank God ! contrary to law." " But what must 
I do," asked' the duchess, " without friends, without rela- 
tions, without counsel?" '^ Ma chere HeBne,'" the king 
replied, '' the dynasty and the crown of your son are in- 
trusted to you. Remain here and protect them." 

As the mob began to pour into the palace after the 
king's departure, the duchess, by the advice of M. Dupin, 
the President (or Speaker) of the Chamber, set out on foot 



Il6 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

to cross the bridge nearest to the palace, and to reach the 
Palais Bourbon. She held her eldest son, the Comte de 
Paris, by the hand; her youngest, who was too small to 
walk, was carried by an aide-de-camp. Beside them 
walked M. Dupin, the Due de Nemours, and a faithful 
servant. They left the Tuileries in such haste that they 
failed to give orders to the faithful Garde Municipale, who 
would have suffered the fate of the Swiss Guard in 1792, 
had not National Guards in the crowd assisted them to 
change their conspicuous uniforms and to escape out of 
the windows. 

During the first half hour after the invasion of the palace 
a great deal of money and many other valuables disap- 
peared ; but after that time it was death to appropriate 
anything, even if it were of little value. 

Soon the gardens of the Tuileries were white with papers 
flung from the windows of the palace, many of them of 
great historical value. A piece of pink gauze, the prop- 
erty, probably, of some maid-of-honor, streamed from one 
of the windows in the roof and fluttered across the whole 
building. The crowd, in high good humor, tossed forth 
livery coats, fragments of state furniture, and papers. The 
beds still stood unmade, and all the apparatus of the ladies' 
toilet-tables remained in disorder. In one royal bed- 
chamber a man was rubbing pomade with both hands into 
his hair, another was drenching himself with perfume, a 
third was scrubbing his teeth furiously with a brush that had 
that morning parted the lips of royalty. In another room 
a man en blouse was seated at a piano playing the " Mar- 
seillaise " to an admiring audience (the " Marseillaise " 
had been forbidden in Paris for many years) . Elsewhere 
a party of gamins were turning over a magnificent scrap- 
book. In the next room was a grand piano, on which 
four men were thumping at once. In another, a party of 
working-men were dancing a quadrifle, while a gentleman 
played for them upon a piano. At every chimney-piece 
and before every work of art stood a guard, generally 
ragged and powder-stained, bearing a placard, " Death to 



THE DOWNFALL OF LOUIS PHILIPPE. Wj 

Robbers ! " while at the head of the Grand Staircase others 
stood, crying, " Enter, messieurs ! Enter ! We don't have 
cards of admission to this house every day!" While the 
cry that passed through the crowd was : '' Look as much 
as you like, but take nothing ! " ''Are not we magnificent 
in our own house. Monsieur? " said d. gamin to an English- 
man ; while another was to be seen walking about in one of 
poor Queen Am^He's state head-dresses, surmounted by a 
bird-of-paradise with a long tail. 

At first the crowd injured nothing, even the king's por- 
traits being respected ; but after a while the destruction of 
state furniture began. Three men were seen smoking in 
the state bed ; some ate up the royal breakfast ; and the 
cigars of the princes were freely handed to rough men in 
the crowd. 

Meantime in the Chamber of Deputies the scene was 
terrible. M. Dupin, its president, lost his head. Had he, 
when he knew of the king's abdication, declared the sit- 
ting closed, and directed the Deputies to disperse, he might 
possibly have saved the monarchy. But the mob got pos- 
session of the tribune (the pulpit from which alone speeches 
can be made in the Chamber) ; they pointed their guns at 
the Deputies, who cowered under their benches, and the 
last chance for Louis Philippe's dynasty was over. Odillon 
Barrot, who had come down to the house full of self- 
importance, notwithstanding his reception on the Boule- 
vards, found that his hour was over and his power gone. 

M. de Lamartine was the idol of the mob, though he 
was very nearly shot in the confusion. Armed insurgents 
crowded round him, clinging to his skirts, his hands, his 
knees. Throughout the tumult the reporters for the *' Mo- 
niteur " kept their seats, taking notes of what was passing. 

The Duchess of Orleans found the Chamber occupied 
by armed men. She was jostled and pressed upon. A 
feeble effort was made to proclaim her son king, and to 
appoint her regent during his minority. She endeavored 
several times to speak, and behaved with an intrepidity 
which did her honor. But when Lamartine^ mounting the 



Il8 FRANCE JN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

tribune, cast aside her claims, and announced that the 
moment had arrived for proclaiming a provisional govern- 
ment and a republic, she was hustled and pushed aside by 
the crowd. 

She was dressed in deep mourning. Her long black 
veil, partly raised, showed her fair face marred with sorrow 
and anxiety. Her children were dressed in Httle black 
velvet skirts and jackets, with large white turned-down 
collars. Soon the crowd around the tribune, beneath 
which the duchess had her seat, grew so furious that her 
attendants, fearing for her life, hurried her away. 

In the press and the confusion the Due de Nemours 
and her two children were parted from her. The Comte 
de Paris was seized by a gigantic man en bloiLse, who said 
afterwards that he had been only anxious to protect the 
child; but' a National Guard forced the boy from his 
grasp, and restored him to his mother. The Due de 
Chartres was for some time lost, and was in great danger, 
having been knocked down on the staircase by an ascend- 
ing crowd. 

At last, however, the little party, under the escort of the 
Due de Nemours, who had disguised himself, escaped on 
foot into the streets, then growing dark; and finding a 
hackney-coach, persuaded the coachman to drive them to 
a place of safety. The Due de Chartres was not to be 
found, and his mother passed many hours of terrible anxiety 
before he was restored to her arms. 

Very strange that night was the scene in the Champs 
Elys^es. They were filled with a joyous and triumphant 
crowd in every variety of military costume, and armed 
with every sort of weapon. Soldiers alone were unarmed. 
They marched arm-in-arm with their new friends, singing, 
like them, the " Marseillaise " and "Mourir pour la Patrie." 
In the quarter of the Champs Elysees, where well-to-do for- 
eigners formed a considerable part of the population, there 
was no ferocity exhibited by the mob. The insurgents 
were like children at play, — children on their good be- 
havior. They had achieved a wonderful and unexpected 



THE DOWNFALL OF LOUIS PHILIPPE. 119 

victory. The throne had fallen, as if built on sand. Those 
who had overturned it were in high good-humor. 

A French mob at the present day is very different. It 
has the modern grudge of laborer against employer, it has 
memories of the license of the Commune, and above all it 
has learned the use of absinthe. There is a hatred and a 
contempt for all things that should command men's rev- 
erence, which did not display itself in 1848. 

May I here be permitted to relate a little story connected 
with this day's events ? I was with my family in Paris during 
those days of revolution. Our nurse, — an Englishwoman 
who had then been with us twenty-five years, and who died 
recently, at the age of ninety-eight, still a member of our 
family, — when we returned home from viewing the devas- 
tation at the Tuileries, expressed strongly her regret at not 
having accompanied us. She was consoled, however, by an 
offer from our man-servant to escort her down the Champs 
Elysees. They made their way to the Place du Carrousel, 
at the back of the palace, where a dense crowd was assem- 
bled, and the good lady became separated from her protector. 
The National Guard and the servants in the palace had just 
succeeded in getting the crowd out of the rooms and in clos- 
ing the doors. This greatly disappointed our good nurse. 
She had counted on seeing the interior of the king's abode, 
and above all, the king's throne. She could speak very 
little French, but she must in some way have communicated 
her regrets to the crowd around her. ^' Does Madame de- 
sire so much to pass in? " said a big man in a blouse, girt 
with a red sash, and carrying a naked sword ; ^^ then Ma- 
dame shall pass in ! " Thereupon he and his followers in 
the front rank of the crowd so bepummelled the door with 
the hilts of their swords and the stocks of their muskets that 
those within were forced to throw it open. In marched our 
dear nurse beside her protector. They passed through room 
after room until they reached the throne-room ; there she 
indicated her wish to obtain a relic of departed royalty. 
Instantly her friend with the bare sword sliced off from the 
throne a piece of red velvet with gold embroidery. She 



120 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

kept it ever after, together with a dehcate china cup marked 
L. P. ; but the cup was much broken. " You see, dears," she 
would say to us, " there was lots of things like these lying 
about, but there were men standing round with naked swords 
ready to cut your head off if you stole anything. So I took 
this cup and broke it. It was not stealing to carry off a 
broken cup, you know." And she would add, when winding 
up her narrative : " Those Frenchmen was so polite to me 
that they did n't even tread on my corns." 

That night there was a brilliant conflagration in the Carrou- 
sel. It was a bonfire of those very carriages which eighteen 
years before the mob had brought in triumph to Louis 
Philippe from the stables of Charles X. at Rambouillet. 

All the next day not a newspaper was to be had. The 
" Presse," indeed, brought out a half sheet, mainly taken up 
in returning thanks to two compositors " who, between two 
fires," had been "so considerate" as to set up the type. 
But their consideration could not have lasted long, for the 
news broke off abruptly in the middle of a sentence on the 
first page. Events worked faster than compositors. 

By noon on Friday, February 25, the entire population of 
Paris was in the streets. From the flags on public offices, 
the blue and white strips had been torn away. On that day 
— but on that day only — every man wore a red ribbon in 
his button-hole. Many did so very unwillingly, for red was 
understood to be the badge of Red Republicanism. 

On the Boulevards the iron railings had been torn up, and 
most of the trees had been cut down. They were replanted, 
however, not long after, to the singing of the " Marseillaise " 
and the firing of cannon. For more than a week there was a 
strange quiet in Paris : no vehicles were in the streets, for the 
paving-stones had been torn up for barricades; no shops 
were open ; on the closed shutters of most of them ap- 
peared the words "Armes donnees." Everywhere a paint- 
brush had been passed over the royal arms. Even the words 
"roi," "reine," '' royal," were effaced. The patriots were 
very zealous in exacting these removals. Two gamins with 
swords hacked patiently for two hours at a cast-iron double- 
headed Austrian eagle. 



THE DOWNFALL OF LOUIS PHILIPPE. 121 

Change (small money, I mean) was hardly to be had in 
Paris. For a month it was necessary, in order to obtain it, 
to apply at the Mairie of the Arrondissement, and to stand 
for hours in a queue. Other money could be had only from 
the bankers in thousand- franc notes. Shopping was of course 
at an end, and half Paris was thrown out of employment. 
Gold and silver were hidden away. 

Louis Philippe and his family drove in their two cabriolets 
to Versailles. There they found great difficulty in getting 
post-horses. Indeed, they would have procured none, had 
there not been some cavalry horses in the place, which were 
harnessed to one of the royal carriages. About midnight of 
their second day's journey they reached Dreux. There Louis 
Philippe found himself without money, and had to borrow 
from one of his tenants. He had left behind him in his haste 
three hundred and fifty thousand francs on a table in the 
Tuileries. 

The Provisional Government, which was kept well informed 
as to his movements, forwarded to him a supply of money. 
At Dreux the king's party was joined by the Duke of Mont- 
pensier with news that the king's attempt to save the mon- 
archy by abdication had failed. 

The old man seemed stupefied by his sudden fall. Over 
and over again he was heard to repeat : '•' Comme Charles X. ! 
Comme Charles X. ! " The next day, travelling under feigned 
names, the royal party pushed on to Evreux, where they were 
hospitably received by a farmer in the forest, who harnessed 
his work-horses to their carriage. Thence they went on to 
their own Chateau d'Eu. The danger to which during this 
journey they were exposed arose, not from the new Govern- 
ment at Paris, but from the excited state of the peasantry. 

After many perils and adventures, sometimes indeed 
travelling on foot to avoid dangerous places, they reached 
Harfleur on March 3. An Enghsh steamer, the "Express," 
lay at the wharf, on which the king and queen embarked as 
Mr. and Mrs. William Smith. The following morning they 
were oft'" the English coast, at Newbern. They landed, and 
proceeded at once to Claremont, the palace given to their 



122 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

son-in-law, Leopold of Belgium, for his lifetime by the Eng- 
lish Parliament. 

The government set up in Paris was a provisional one. 
The members of the Provisional Government were many of 
them well known to the public, and of approved character. 
No men ever had a more difficult task before them, and 
none ever tried with more self-sacrifice to do their duty. 

The measures they proposed were eighteen in number : 

1. The retention of the tricolor. 

2. The retention of the Galhc cock. 

3. The sovereignty of the people. 

4. The dissolution of the Chamber of Deputies. 

5. The suppression of the Chamber of Peers. 

6. The convocation of a National Assembly. 

7. Work to be guaranteed to all working-men. 

8. The unity of the army and the populace. 

9. The formation of a Garde Mobile. 

10. The arrest and punishment of all deserters. 

11. The release of all political prisoners. 

12. The trial of M. Guizot and his colleagues. 

13. The reduction of Vincennes and Fort Valerien, still held 
by the troops for the king. 

14. All officials under Louis Philippe to be released from 
their oaths. 

15. All objects at the Mont de Piete (the Government pawn- 
broking establishment) valued under ten francs, to be restored. 

16. All National Guards dismissed under preceding Govern- 
ments to be reinstated. 

17. The miUion of francs expended on the court to be given to 
disabled workmen. 

18. A paternal commission to be nominated, to look after the 
interests of the working-classes. 

The institution of the Garde Mobile was a device for 
finding employment for those boys and young men who 
formed one of the most dangerous of the dangerous classes. 

It is easy to see how tempting these promises were to 
working-men ; and yet the better class among them mourned 
their loss of steady employment. The Revolution of 1848, 
though it was not originated by the working- classes, was 
made to appear as if it were intended for their profit; and 



THE DOWNFALL OF LOUIS PHILIPPE. 123 

that indeed was its ruin, for it was found impossible to keep 
the promises of work, support, parental protection, etc., 
made to the Parisian masses. The dourgeoisie, when they 
recovered from their astonishment and found that the stone 
they had set rolling under the name of reform had dislodged 
their own Revolution of 1830, and the peasants of the pro- 
vinces, when they found that all the praise and all the profits 
were solely for the working-men of the capital, were very 
far from satisfied. 

As to the upper classes, their terror and dismay were over- 
whelming. Everything seemed sHding away under their 
feet. Many women of rank and fashion, distrusting the 
stabihty of the king's government, had for some time past 
been yearly adding diamonds to their necklaces, because, 
as one of them exclaimed to us during this month of Feb- 
ruary : " We knew not what might happen to stocks or to 
securities, but diamonds we can put into our pockets. No 
other property in France can be called secure ! " 

And yet Paris soon resumed its wonted appearance. Com- 
merce and shopping might be impossible in a city where 
nobody could make change for two hundred dollars, yet 
the Champs Elysees were again gay with pedestrians and 
carriages. All favorite amusements were resumed, but 
almost all men being idle, their great resource was to as- 
semble round the H6tel-de-Ville and force Lamartine to 
make a speech to them. 

On Saturday, March 4, all Paris crowded to the Boule- 
vards to witness the funeral cortege of the victims. There 
were neither military nor police to keep order; yet the 
crowd was on its good behavior, and strict decorum was 
maintained. There were about three hundred thousand 
persons in the procession, and as many more on the side- 
walks. As they marched, mourners and spectators all sang 
the Chant of the Girondins (" Mourir pour la Patrie ") 
and the " Marseillaise." 

Two things distinguished this revolution of February from 
all other French revolutions before or after it, — the high 
character and self-devotion of the men placed at the head 



124 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

of affairs, and the absence of prejudice against religion. 
The revolution, so far from joutting itself in antagonism with 
religious feeling, everywhere appealed to it. The men who 
invaded the Tuileries bowed before the crucifix in the 
queen's chamber. Priests who were known to be zealous 
workers among the poor were treated as fathers. Citres 
blessed the trees of liberty planted in their parishes. Prayers 
for the Republic were offered at the altars, and in country 
villages priests headed the men of their congregations who 
marched up to the polls. 




ALPHONSE DE LA MARTIN E. 



CHAPTER VII. 

LAMARTINE AND THE SECOND REPUBLIC.^ 

'T^HE Provisional Government hastily set up in France 
*• on Feb. 24, 1848, consisted at first of five members; 
but that number was afterwards enlarged. M. Dupin, who 
had been President of the Chamber of Deputies, was made 
President of the Council (or prime minister) ; but the real 
head of the Government and Minister for Foreign Affairs 
was Alphonse de Lamartine. He was a Christian believer, 
a high-minded man, by birth an aristocrat, yet by sympathy 
a man of the masses. " He was full of sentimentalities of 
vainglory and of personal vanity ; but no pilot ever guided 
a ship of state so skilfully and with such absolute self- 
devotion through an angry sea. For a brief while, just long 
enough to effect this purpose, he was the idol of the popu- 
lace." With him were associated Cr^mieux, a Jew; Ledru- 
Rollin, the historian, a Red Repubhcan ; Arago, the astron- 
omer; Hypolite Carnot, son of Lazare Carnot, Member 
of the Directory, father of the future president ; General 
Casaignac, who was made governor of Algeria ; Garnier- 
Pages, who a second time became, in 1870, member of a 
Provisional Government for the defence of Paris; and 
several others. 

The downfall of Louis Philippe startled and astonished 
even those who had brought it about. They had intended 
reform, and they drew down revolution. They hoped 
to effect a change of ministry : they were disconcerted 

1 For the subject-matter of this chapter I am largely indebted to 
Mrs. Oliphant's article on Lamartine in " Blackwood's Magazine." 



126 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

when they had dethroned a king. There were about 
thirty thousand regular troops in Paris, besides the Na- 
tional Guard and the mounted police, or Garde Muni- 
cipale. No one had imagined that the Throne of the 
Barricades would fall at the first assault. There were no 
leaders anywhere in this revolution. The king's party 
had no leaders; the young princes seemed paralyzed. 
The army had no leader; the commander-in-chief had 
been changed three times in twenty-four hours. The in- 
surgents had no leaders. On February 22 Odillon Barrot 
was their hero, and on February 23 they hooted him. 

The republicans, to their own amazement, were left 
masters of the field of battle, and Lamartine was pushed to 
the front as their chief man. 

I may here pause in the historical narrative to say a few 
words about the personal history of Lamartine, which, in- 
deed, will include all that history has to say concerning 
the Second Republic. 

The love stories of the uncle and father of Alphonse de 
Lamartine are so pathetic, and give us so vivid a picture 
of family life before the First Revolution, that I will go 
back a generation, and tell them as much as possible in 
Lamartine's own words. 

His grandfather had had six children, — three daughters 
and three sons. According to French custom, under the 
old regime, the eldest son only was to marry, and the other 
members of the Lamartine family proceeded as they grew 
up to fulfil their appointed destinies. The second son 
went into the Church, and rose to be a bishop. The third 
son, M. le Chevalier, went into the army. The sisters 
adopted the religious life, and thus all were provided for. 
But strange to say, the eldest son, to whose happiness and 
prosperity the rest were to be sacrificed, was the first rebel 
in the family. He fell in love with a Mademoiselle de 
Saint-Huruge ; but her dot was not considered by the elder 
members of the family sufficient to justify the alliance. 
The young man gave up his bride, and to the consternation 
of his relatives announced that he would marry no other 



LAMAR TINE AND THE SECOND REPUBLIC. 12/ 

woman. M. le Chevalier must marry and perpetuate the 
ancestral line. 

Lamartine says, — 

"M. le Chevaher was the youngest in that generation of 
our family. At sixteen he had entered the regiment in which 
his father had served before him. His career was to grow old 
in the modest position of a captain in the army (which posi- 
tion he attained at an early age), to pass his few months of 
leave, from time to time, in his father's house, to gain the Cross 
of St. Louis (which was the end of all ambitions to provin- 
cial gentlemen), and then, when he grew old, being endowed 
with a small provision from the State, or a still smaller rev- 
enue of his own, he expected to vegetate in one of his 
brothers' old chateaux, having his rooms in the upper story, 
to superintend the garden, to shoot with the cii7'e, to look after 
the horses, to play with the children, to make up a game of 
whist or tric-trac, — the born servant of every one, a domestic 
slave, happy in his lot, beloved, and yet neglected by all. But 
in the end his fate was very different. His elder brother, 
having refused to marry, said to his father : ' You must marry 
the Chevalier.' All the feelings of the family and the preju- 
dices of habit rose up in the heart of the old nobleman 
against this suggestion. Chevaliers, according to his notions, 
were not intended to marry. My father was sent back to his 
regiment, and his marrying was put off from year to year." 

Meantime, the idea of marriage having been put into 
the Chevalier's head, he chose for himself, and happily 
his choice fell on a lady acceptable to his family. His sis- 
ter was canoness in an aristocratic order, whose members 
were permitted to receive visits from their brothers. It was 
there that he wooed and won the lovely, saint-like mother 
of xA.lphonse de Lamartine. 

The elder brother, as he advanced in life, kept up a truly 
affecting intercourse with Mademoiselle de Saint-Huruge. 
She was beautiful even in old age, though her beauty was 
dimmed by an expression of sadness. They met every 
evening in Macon, at the house of a member of the family, 
and each entertained till death a pure and constant friend- 
ship for the other. 

No wonder that when the Revolution decreed the aboli- 



128 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

tion of all rights of primogeniture, and ordered each 
father's fortune to be equally divided among his chil- 
dren, that M. le Chevalier refused to take advantage of 
this new arrangement, and left his share to the elder 
brother, to whom he owed his domestic happiness. In 
the end, all the property of the family came to the 
poet ; the aunts and uncles — the former of whom 
had been driven from their convents — having made him 
their heir. 

Madame de Lamartine had received part of her educa- 
tion from Madame de Genlis, and had associated in her 
childhood with Louis Philippe and Madame Adelaide. 
But though the influence of Madame de Genlis was prob- 
ably not in favor of piety, Madame de Lamartine was sin- 
cerely pious. In her son's early education she seems to 
have been influenced by Madame de Genlis' admiration 
of Rousseau. Alphonse ran barefoot on the hills, with the 
little peasant boys for company ; but at home he was swayed 
by the discipline of love. He pubhshed nothing till he 
was thirty years of age, though he wrote poetry from early 
youth. His study was in the open air, under some grand 
old oaks on the edge of a deep ravine. In his hands 
French poetry became for the first time musical and de- 
scriptive of nature. There was deep religious feeling, too, 
in Lamartine's verse, rather vague as to doctrine, but full 
of genuine religious sentiment. As a Christian poet he 
struck a chord which vibrated in many hearts, for the early 
part of our century was characterized by faith and by en- 
thusiasm. Scepticism was latent, but was soon to assert 
itself in weary indifference. " As yet, doubt sorrowed that 
it doubted, and could feel the beauty of faith, even when 
it disbelieved." 

From 1820 to 1824 Lamartine was a good deal in Italy; 
after the death of an innocent Italian girl, which he has 
celebrated in touching verse, he married an Enghsh lady, 
and had one child, his beloved Julia. He was made a 
member of the French Academy, and Charles X. had ap- 
pointed him ambassador to Greece, when the Revolution 



LAMARTINE AND THE SECOND REPUBLIC. 1 29 

of 1 8 30 occurred, and he refused to serve under King 
Charles's successor. 

In 1832, partly for Julia's health, he visited the Holy 
Land and Eastern Europe. Poor little Julia died at 
Beyrout. On the father's return he published his "Sou- 
venirs of his Journey." Books descriptive of Eastern 
countries were then rare, and Lamartine's was received 
with enthusiasm. 

In 1833 Lamartine began his political career by enter- 
ing the Chamber of Deputies. Some one said of him 
that he formed a party by himself, — a party of one. 
He pleaded for the abolition of capital punishment, 
for the amelioration of the poorer classes, for the eman- 
cipation of slaves in the colonies, and for various 
other social reforms ; but he was never known as a 
republican. 

In 1847 he published his " Histoire des Girondins," 
which was received by the public with deep interest and 
applause. It is not always accurate in small particulars, 
but it is one of the most fascinating books of history ever 
written, and has had the good fortune to be singularly 
well translated. i\lexandre Dumas is said to have told its 
author : " You have elevated romance to the dignity of 
history." 

When the revolution of February, 1848, broke out, 
Lamartine, being unwell, did not make his way on the first 
day through the crowds to the Chamber of Deputies, nor did 
he go thither on the second, looking on the affair as an 
emeiite likely to be followed only by a change of ministry. 
But when news was brought to him which made him feel it 
was a very serious affair, he went at once to the Chamber. 
On entering, he was seized upon by men of all parties, but 
especially by republicans, who drew him into a side-room 
and told him that the king had abdicated. He had always 
advocated the regency of the Duchess of Orleans in the 
event of Louis Philippe's death, in place of that of the 
Due de Nemours. The men who addressed him implored 
him, as the most popular man in France, to put himself at 

9 



I30 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

the head of a movement to make the Duchess of Orleans 
regent during her son's minority, adding that France mider 
a woman and a child would soon drift into a republic. 
Lamartine sat for some minutes at a table with his face 
bowed on his hands. He was praying, he says, for light. 
Then he arose, and after saying that he had never been a 
republican, added that now he was for a republic, without 
any intermediate regency, either of the duchess or of 
Nemours. With acclamations, the party went back into the 
Chamber to await events. 

We know already how the duchess was received, and how 
a mob broke into the Chamber. A provisional government 
was demanded, in the midst of indescribable tumult ; and by 
the suffrages of a crowd of roughs quite as much as by the 
action of the deputies^ a provisional government of five 
members (afterwards increased to seven) was voted in, the 
names being written down with a pencil by Lamartine on 
the spur of the moment. The five men thus nominated and 
chosen to be rulers of France were Lamartine, Cremieux, 
Ledru-Rollin, Gamier- Pages, and Arago. 

Meantime in the H6tel-de-Ville the mob had set up 
another provisional government under Socialistic leaders, 
and the first thing the more genuine provisional government 
had to do was to get rid of the others. 

Lamartine says of himself that he felt his mission was to 
preserve society, and very nobly he set himself to his task. 
When he and his colleagues reached the Hotel-de-Ville, 
where the mob was clamoring for Sociahsm and a repub- 
lic, a compromise had to be effected ; and thus Louis 
Blanc, the Socialistic reformer, came into the Provisional 
Government. It was growing night, and the announcement 
of this new arrangement somewhat calmed the crowd ; 
but at midnight an attack was made on the Hotel-de- 
Ville, and the new rulers had to defend themselves by 
personal strength, setting their backs against the doors of 
the Council Chamber, and repelling their assailants with 
their own hands. But the Press and the telegraph were at 
their command, and by morning the news of the Provisional 



LAMARTINE AND THE SECOND REPUBLIC. 131 

Government was spread all over the provinces. "■ The 
mob," says Lamartine, '' was in part composed of gal- 
ley slaves who had no political ideas in their heads, 
nor social principles in their hearts, and partly of that 
scum which rises to the surface in popular commotions, 
and floats between the fumes of intoxication and the thirst 
for blood." 

Lamartine was not a great man, but it was lucky for 
France, and for all Europe, that at this crisis he succeeded 
in establishing a provisional government, and that he was 
placed at its head. But for him, Paris might have had the 
Commune in 1848, as she had it in 187 1, but with no 
great army collected at Versailles to bring it to subjection. 

From such a fate France was saved by the energy and 
enthusiastic patriotism of one man, to whom, it seems to 
me, justice in history has hardly yet been done. " Lamar- 
tine was not republican enough for republicans ; he lost at 
last his prestige among the people, and from personal causes 
the full sympathy of his friends ; and his star sank before the 
rising sun of Louis Napoleon." Mrs. Oliphant also says 
of him, — 

" In the midst of bis manifold literary labors there happened 
to Lamartine such a chance as befalls few poets. He had it in 
his power, once in his life, to do something greater than the 
greatest lyric, more noble than any verse. At the crisis of the 
Revolution of 1848, chance (to use the word without irrever- 
ence) thrust him, and no other, into the place of master, and 
held him for one supreme moment alone between France and 
anarchy, — between, we might almost say, the world and another 
terrible revolution. And then the sentimentalist proved him- 
self a man. He confronted raving Paris, and subdued it. The 
old noble French blood in his veins rose to the greatness of the 
crisis. With a pardonable thrill of pride in a position so 
strange to a writer and a man of thought, into which, without 
any action of his own, he found himself forced, he describes how 
he faced the tumultuous mob of Paris for seventy hours almost 
without repose, without sleep, without food, when there was no 
other man in France bold enough or wise enough to take that 
supreme part, and guide that most aimless of revolutions to a 
peaceful conclusion, — for the moment, at least. It was not 



132 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Lamartine's fault that the Empire came after him. Long before 
the Empire came, he had fallen from his momentary elevation, 
and lost all influence with his country. But his downfall cannot 
efface the fact that he did actually reign, and reign beneficently, 
subduing and controlling the excited nation, saving men's lives 
and the balance of society." 

The seventy hours at the H6tel-de-Ville to which Mrs. 
Oliphant alludes were passed by Eamartine in making ora- 
tions, in sending off proclamations to the departments, in 
endeavoring to calm the excited multitude and to secure 
the triumph of the Republic without the effusion of blood. 
The revolution he conducted was, if I may say so, the only 
respectable revolution France has ever known. Nobody 
expected it, nobody was prepared for it, nobody worked 
for it ; but the whole country acquiesced in it, and men of 
all parties, seeing that it was an accomplished fact, gave in 
their adhesion to the Second Republic. 

There were five great questions that came up before the 
Provisional Government for immediate solution, — 

The relation of France to foreign powers. 

The enlargement of the army. 

The subsistence of working-men out of employment. 

The property and safety of the exiled royal family. 

And, above all, how to meet these expenses and the pay- 
ment of interest on national bonds, due the middle of 
March, with assets in the treasury of about twenty-five 
cents in the dollar. 

These questions were all met by the wonderful energy of 
Lamartine and his colleagues, seconded by genuine patri- 
otic efforts throughout France 

Lamartine had taken the foreign relations of the new 
Republic into his own hands ; and so well did he manage 
them that not one potentate of Europe attempted to inter- 
fere with the internal affairs of France, or to dispute the 
right of the French to establish a republic if they thought 
proper. But although Lamartine's policy was peace, he 
thought France needed a large army both to keep down 
communism and anarchy at home, and to show itself strong 



LAMARTINE AND THE SECOND REPUBLIC. 1 33 

in the face of all foreign powers. The army of France in 
January, 1848, had been about three hundred thousand 
men, of whom one hundred thousand were in Algeria ; by 
May it was five hundred thousand, not including the Garde 
Mobile, which was of Lamartine's raising. It is well known 
how fiercely boys and very young men fought when any 
occasion for fighting was presented in the streets and at the 
barricades ; all business being stopped in Paris, thousands 
of these were out of employment. Lamartine had them 
enrolled into his new corps, the Garde Mobile. Their uni- 
form at first was a red sash and a workman's blouse. They 
were proud of themselves and of their n^^ position, and in 
May, by dint of discipline, they were transformed into a fine 
soldierly body of very young men, who several times ren- 
dered important help to the Government in maintaining 
the cause of order. The National Guard was broken 
up until it could be reorganized, and so was the Garde 
Municipale. 

But how to feed the multitude ? Two hundred thousand 
mechanics alone were out of employment in Paris, besides 
laborers, servants, clerks, etc. It was proposed to establish 
national workshops in Louis Philippe's pretty private plea- 
sure-grounds, the Pare des Monceaux. The men applying 
for work were enrolled in squads ; each squad had its ban- 
ner and its officers, and each man was paid on Saturday 
night his week's wages, at the rate of two francs a day, — the 
highest wages in Paris at that time for an artisan. There 
was no particular work for them to do, but the arrangement 
kept them disciplined and out of mischief, though at an 
enormous cost to the country. At the Palace of the Lux- 
embourg Louis Blanc was permitted to hold a series of great 
labor meetings, — a sort of Socialist convention, — and to 
inveigh against " capitalists " and " bloated bondholders " in 
a style that was much more novel then than it is now. La- 
martine greatly disapproved of these Luxembourg proceed- 
ings ; but he argued that it was better to countenance them 
than to throw Louis Blanc and his friends into open opposi- 
tion to the Government. Louis Blanc was a charming writer, 



134 I'^RANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

whose views on social questions have made great progress 
since his day. His brother Charles wrote a valuable book 
on art. He himself wrote a " History of the Revolution " 
and the " History of Ten Years," — that is, from 1830 to 
1840. He bitterly hated Louis Philippe and the bourgeoisie, 
and yet his book is fair and honest, and the work of a gen- 
tleman. He was almost a dwarf, but his face was very 
handsome, clean-shaved, with bright eyes and brown hair. 
I may remark en passant that not one of the members 
of the Provisional Government wore either a beard or a 
moustache. 

One of the first things the Provisional Government did 
was to decree that the personal property of the Orleans 
family should not be confiscated, but placed in the hands of 
a receiver, who should pay the king and princes liberal allow- 
ances till it became certain that their wealth would not be 
spent in raising an army for the invasion of France. 

Louis Philippe lived only two years after reaching Eng- 
land. They were apparently not unhappy years to him. 
He sat at the foot of his own table, and carved the joint 
daily for his guests, children, and grandchildren. He dic- 
tated his Memoirs, and talked with the greatest openness to 
those who wished to converse with him. 

The Due d'Aumale was head of the army in Algeria, 
and governor-general of the colony, when the Revolution 
broke out. Here is the address which he at once published 
to his soldiers and the people, and with which the whole of 
his after Hfe has been consistent : — 

Inhabitants of Algeria ! Faithful to my duties as a citizen 
and a soldier, I have remained at my post as long as I could 
believe my presence would be useful in the service of my coun- 
try. It can no longer be so. General Cavaignac is appointed 
governor-general of Algeria, and until his arrival here, the 
functions of governor-general ad interim will be discharged by 
General Changarnier. Submissive to the national will, I de- 
part ; but in my place of exile my best prayers and wishes shall 
be for the prosperity and glory of France, which I should have 
wished still longer to serve. 

H. d'Orleans. 



LAMAR TINE AND THE SECOND REPUBLIC. 135 

The greatest problem which demanded solution from the 
Provisional Government was how to make twenty-five cents 
do the work of a dollar. The first Minister of Finance 
appointed, threw up his portfolio in despair. Lamartine 
refused to sanction any arbitrary means of raising money. 
At last, by giving some especial privileges and protection to 
the Bank of France, and by mortgaging the national for- 
ests, a sufficient sum was provided for immediate needs. 
The people, too, throughout the provinces, made it a point 
of honor to come forward and pay their taxes before they 
were due. The priests preached this as a duty, for the 
priests were well disposed towards the Revolution of 1848, 
Lamartine had put forth a proclamation assuring priests 
and people that his Government was in sympathy with 
religion. 

In the Provisional Government itself there were two, if 
not three, parties, — the party of order, headed by Lamar- 
tine ; the Socialists, or labor party, headed by Louis Blanc ; 
and the Red Republicans, or Anarchists, headed by Ledru- 
Rollin. The latter was for adopting the policy of putting 
out of office all men who had not been always republicans. 
Lamartine, on the contrary, said that any man who loved 
France and desired to serve her was not incapacitated from 
doing so by previous political opinions. 

Elections for a Constitutional Assembly, which was to 
confirm or to repudiate the Provisional Government, were 
held on March 24, and the new Assembly was to meet 
early in May. Meantime all kinds of duties and anxieties 
accumulated on Lamartine. The Polish, Hungarian, Span- 
ish, German, and Italian exiles in Paris were all anxious 
that he should espouse their causes against their own Gov- 
ernments. He assured them that this was not the mis- 
sion of the Second French RepubUc, whatever might have 
been that of the First, and that the cause of European 
liberty would lose, not gain, if France, with propagandist 
fervor, embroiled herself with the monarchical powers. A 
deputation of Irishmen, under Smith O'Brien, waited upon 
him to beg the assistance of fifty thousand French troops in 



136 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Ireland, "to rid her of the Enghsh." Lamartine peremp- 
torily refused, saying : " When one is not united by blood 
to a people, it is not allowable to interfere in its affairs with 
the strong hand." Smith O'Brien and his followers, deeply 
mortified, repaired at once to Ledru-Rollin's Red Republi- 
can Club, where they were loudly applauded, and Lamartine 
condemned. 

Meantime there were disturbances everywhere. Men 
out of employment, excited by club orators, were ready 
for any violence. At Lyons they destroyed the hospitals 
and orphan asylums, out of mere wantonness. 

One afternoon Lamartine received news that the sol- 
diers at the Invalides, dissatisfied with General Petit, their 
commander, had dragged him to the street, placed him 
on a cart, and were carrying him thus around Paris. On 
foot he rushed to the rescue, trusting to his powers of 
haranguing the multitude ; but luckily the general had 
been released before his arrival. There is but one step 
from the sublime to the ridiculous. We smile at the spec- 
tacle of the ruler of France rushing on foot, through dim 
streets, after a cart he could not find. General Petit was 
that officer of the Old Guard whom Napoleon had em- 
braced when he took leave of his beloved corps at Fon- 
tainebleau. Lamartine re-estabhshed him as commander 
at the Invalides, and the mutiny was put down. 

On the night of the first day of the Provisional Govern- 
ment, a mob having demanded that the red flag of Com- 
munism should be substituted for the tricolor, Lamartine 
repUed, — 

" Citizens ! neither I nor any member of the Government 
will adopt the Drapeau Rouge. We would rather adopt that 
other flag which is hoisted in a bombarded city to mark to 
the enemy the hospitals of the wounded. I will tell you in 
one word why I will oppose the red flag with the whole force 
of patriotic determination. It is, citizens, because the tricolor 
has made the tour of the world with the Repubhc and the 
Empire, with your liberties and your glory; the red flag has 
only made the tour of the Champ de Mars, dragged through 
the blood of citizens," 



LAMAR TINE AND THE SECOND REPUBLIC. 1 37 

- Muskets in the crowd were here levelled at the speaker, 
but were knocked up by the more peaceable of his 
hearers. 

There was soon great discontent throughout the depart- 
ments because of the imposition of a land-tax; but as 
Lamartine said truly, farmers would have found war or the 
triumph of Red Republicanism more expensive still. 

On March 17, about three weeks after the departure 
of the king, a great Socialist demonstration was made in 
Paris. Large columns of men marched to the Hotel- de- 
Ville, singing the old revolutionary chant of " Ca ira." Le- 
dru-Rollin, in the fulness of his heart, seeing these one 
hundred and twenty thousand men all marching with some 
discipline, said to his colleagues in the Council Chamber : 
" Do you know that your popularity is nothing to mine ? 
I have but to open this window and call upon these men, 
and you would every one of you be turned into the street. 
Do you wish me to try it?" 

Upon this. Gamier- Pages, the Finance Minister, walked 
up to Ledru-Rollin, and presenting a pistol, said : " If you 
make one step toward that window, it shall be your last." 
Ledru-Rollin paused a moment, and then sat down. 

The object of the demonstration was to force the Pro- 
visional Government to take measures for raising and 
equalizing wages, and providing State employment for all 
out of employ. The main body was refused admittance 
into the H6tel-de-Ville, but a certain number of the 
leaders were permitted to address the Provisional Govern- 
ment, To Ledru-Rollin' s and Louis Blanc's surprise, they 
found that half of these leaders were men they had never 
seen before, more radical radicals than themselves, — that 
revolutionary scum that rose to the surface in the Reign 
of Terror and the Commune. 

A sense of common danger made Ledru-Rollin and 
Louis Blanc unite with their colleagues in refusing the 
demand of the deputation that the measures they advo- 
cated should be put in force by immediate decrees. La- 
martine harangued them ; so did Ledru-RoUin and Louis 



138 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Blanc ; and at last the disappointed multitude, with ven- 
geance in their hearts, filed peaceably away. 

A month later, April 15, another outbreak was planned. 
The chief club leaders wished it to be headed by Ledru- 
Rollin and Blanqui, — the latter a conspirator in Louis 
Philippe's time. But Ledru-Rollin refused to serve with 
Blanqui, having discovered from documents in his office 
(that of Minister of Justice) that Blanqui had once been 
a Government spy. "Well, then," said the club leaders, 
" since you decline to be our chief, you shall to-morrow 
share the fate of your colleagues." Ledru-Rolhn, after 
a terrible night of vacillation, resolved to throw himself 
on Lamartine's generosity. He went to him at daybreak 
and told him of the impending danger. At once Lamar- 
tine sent him to call out the National Guard, while he 
himself summoned the Garde Mobile. The National 
Guard had been reorganized ; but there were no regular 
soldiers in Paris, — they had been sent away to satisfy the 
people. The commander of the National Guard, how- 
ever, refused to let his men be called out on the occasion ; 
and Lamartine, on hearing this, went to the Hotel- de- 
Ville alone. But help came to him from an unexpected 
quarter. General Changarnier, who had been appointed 
ambassador to Berlin, called at Lamartine's house to return 
thanks for his appointment. Madame de Lamartine told 
him of the danger that menaced her husband, and he 
repaired at once to the H6tel-de-Ville. There he found 
only about twelve hundred boys of the Garde Mobile to op- 
pose the expected two hundred thousand insurgents. He 
drew his Garde Mobile into the building, and prepared to 
stand a siege. There from early morning till the next day 
Lamartine remained with Marrast, the Mayor of Paris. He 
says that he harangued the mob from thirty to forty times. 
The other members of the Government remained in one 
of the public offices. With much difficulty the National 
Guard, whose organization was not yet complete, was 
brought upon the scene. The procession of the insur- 
gents was cut in two, the commander of the National 



LAMARTINE AND THE SECOND REPUBLIC. 1 39 

Guard employing the same tactics as those which the 
Duke of WelUngton had used a week earUer, when deaUng 
in London with the Chartist procession. The result was 
the complete discomfiture of the insurgents. 

A few days afterwards the members of the Provisional 
Government sat twelve hours, on thrones erected for them 
under the Arch of Triumph, to see Gardes Mobiles, Na- 
tional Guards, troops of the line, and armed workmen, 
file past them, all shouting for Lamartine and Order ! It 
was probably the proudest moment of Lamartine's life ; in 
that flood- tide of his popularity he easily could have seized 
supreme power. 

All through the provinces disturbances went on. The 
object of the Red Republicans had at first been to oppose 
the election of the National Assembly. So long as France 
remained under the provisional dictatorship of Lamartine 
and his colleagues, and the regular troops were kept out 
of Paris, they hoped to be able to seize supreme power 
by a coup de main. 

The National Assembly was, however, elected on Easter 
Day, and proved to be largely conservative. The deputies 
met May 4, — the anniversary of the meeting of the States- 
General in 1789, fifty-nine years before. Its hall was 
a temporary structure, erected in the courtyard of the 
Palais Bourbon, the former place of meeting for the Cham- 
ber of Deputies. There was no enthusiasm in the body 
for the Republic, and evidently a hostile feeling towards the 
Provisional Government, which it was disposed to think 
too much allied with Red Republicanism. 

Two days after the Assembly met, the Provisional Gov- 
ernment resigned its powers. To Lamartine's great cha- 
grin, he stood, not first, but fourth, on a list of five men 
chosen temporarily to conduct the government. Some 
of his proceedings had made the Assembly fear (very 
unjustly) that he shared the revolutionary enthusiasms of 
Ledru-Rollin. 

It was soon apparent that ultra-democracy in France 
was not favored by the majority of Frenchmen. The 



I40 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Socialists and Anarchists, finding that they could not form 
a tyrant majority in the Assembly, began to conspire 
against it. While a debate was going on ten days after 
it assembled, an alarm was raised that a fierce crowd was 
about to pour into its place of meeting. Lamartine 
harangued the mob, but this time without effect. His 
day was over. He was received with shouts of "You 
have played long enough upon the lyre ! A bas Lamar- 
tine ! " Ledru-Rollin tried to harangue in his turn, but 
with no better effect. The hall was invaded, and Lamar- 
tine, throwing up his arms, cried, "All is lost!" 

Barbes, the man who led an ejneute in 1839, and whose 
life had been spared by Louis Philippe through the exer- 
tions of Lamartine, led the insurgents. They demanded 
two things, — a forced tax of a miUiard (that is, a thousand 
milHon) of francs, to be laid on the rich for the benefit of 
the poor; and that whoever gave orders to call out the 
National Guard against insurgents should be declared a 
traitor. "You are wrong, Barbes," cried a voice from the 
crowd ; " two hours' sack of Paris is what we want." After 
this the president of the Assembly was pulled from his 
chair, and a new provisional government was nominated of 
fierce Red Republicans, — not red enough, however, for the 
crowd, which demanded Socialists and Anarchists redder 
still. By this time some battalions of the National Guard 
had been called out. At sight of their bayonets the insur- 
gents fled, but concentrated their forces on the H6tel-de- 
Ville. This again they evacuated when cannon were 
pointed against it, and the cause of order was won. 

General Cavaignac, who had just come home from Algeria, 
was made War Minister, and the clubs were closed. Louis 
Blanc was sent into exile. The Orleans family, which had 
been treated considerately by Lamartine, was forbidden to 
return to France. 

The Assembly was now dissolved, and a new Chamber of 
Deputies was to be chosen in June. Among the candidates 
for election was Prince Louis Napoleon. He had already, 
in the days of Lamartine's administration, visited Paris, and 



LAMAKTINE AND THE SECOND REPUBLIC. 141 

had replied to a polite request from the Provisional Govern- 
ment that he would speedily leave the capital, that any 
man who would disturb the Provisional Government was no 
true friend to France. Now he professed to ask only to be 
permitted to become a representative of the people, saying 
that he had " not forgotten that Napoleon, before being the 
first magistrate in France, was its first citizen." 

Then cries of "Vive I'ernpereur ! " began to be heard. 
Louis Napoleon's earliest " idea " had been that France 
needed an emperor whose throne should be based on uni- 
versal suffrage. To this "idea" he added another, — that 
it was his destiny to be the chosen emperor. 

No one in these days can conceive the hold that the 
memory of the First Napoleon had, in 1848, on the affec- 
tions of the French people. That he put down anarchy 
with an iron hand was by the Anarchists forgotten. He 
was a son of the Revolution. His marches through Europe 
had scattered the seeds of revolutionary ideas. The heart 
of France responded to such verses as Beranger's " Grand'- 
mere." In vain Lamartine represented the impolicy and 
unfairness of proscribing the Orleans family while admitting 
into France the head of the house of Bonaparte. Louis 
Napoleon was elected deputy by four departments ; but he 
subsequently hesitated to take his seat, fearing, he said, that 
he might be the cause of dissension in the Assembly. 

The deputies from Paris were all Socialists, but those 
from the departments were frequently men of note and 
reputation. The country members were nearly all friends 
to order and conservatism. 

The first necessary measure was to get rid of the national 
workshops. On June 20, one hundred and twenty thou- 
sand workmen were being paid daily two francs each, only 
two thousand of whom had anything to do, while fifty 
thousand more were clamoring for admission. 

Of course any measure to suppress the national work- 
shops, or to send home those who had come up to Paris 
for employment in them, was opposed by the workmen. It 
was computed that among those employed, or rather paid, 



142 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

by the State for doing nothing, were twenty-five thousand 
desperate men, ready for any fight, and that half this 
number were ex-convicts. The Government had nominally 
large forces at its command, but it was doubtful how far its 
troops could be rehed on. 

On June 22, 1848, at nightfall the struggle began. By 
morning half Paris was covered with barricades. It was 
very hard to collect troops, but Cavaignac was a tried 
soldier. He divided his little force into four parts. It 
was not till the evening of the 23d that hostilities com- 
menced, and at the same time General Cavaignac was 
named by the Assembly dictator. This inspired confidence. 
Cavaignac was well supported, and acted with the greatest 
energy. The street-fighting was fiercer than any Paris had 
ever seen, and no real success was gained by Cavaignac till 
the evening of the 24th, after twenty-four hours of hard 
fighting. That success was the storming of the church of 
Sainte Genevieve (called also the Pantheon) and the destruc- 
tion of its walls. But still the fight went on. Many gen- 
erals were wounded. Cavaignac used his cannon freely, and 
even his bombs. It was night on June 26 before the troops 
could be pronounced victorious, and then they had not 
stormed the most formidable of the barricades, — that of 
the Rue du Faubourg Saint- Antoine. Says Sir Archibald 
Alison, — 

" But ere the attack on this barricade commenced, a sublime in- 
stance of Christian heroism and devotion occurred, which shines 
forth like a heavenly glory in the midst of these terrible scenes of 
carnage. Monseigneur Affre, archbishop of Paris, horror-stricken 
with the slaughter which for three days had been going on, 
resolved to attempt a reconciliation between the contending 
parties, or perish in the attempt. Having obtained leave from 
General Cavaignac to repair to the headquarters of the insur- 
gents, he set out, dressed in his pontifical robes, having the 
cross in his hand, attended by his two chaplains, also in full 
canonicals, and three intrepid members of the Assembly. 
Deeply affected by this courageous act, which they knew was 
almost certain death, the people, as he walked through the 
streets, fell on their knees and besought him to desist; but he 



LAMARTINE AND THE SECOND REPUBLIC. 1 43 

persisted, saying, ' It is my duty ; a good shepherd giveth his hfe 
for the sheep.' At seven in the evening he arrived at the Place 
de la Bastille, where the fire of musketry was extremely warm 
on both sides. It ceased on either side at the august spectacle, 
and the archbishop, bearing the cross aloft, advanced with his 
two priests to the foot of the barricade. A single attendant, 
bearing a green branch, preceded the prelate. The soldiers, 
seeing him advance so close to those who had already slain 
bearers of flags-of- truce, approached in order to give him succor 
in case of need ; the insurgents, on their side, descended the 
barricade, and the redoubtable combatants stood close to each 
other, exchanging looks of defiance. Suddenly a shot was heard. 
Instantly the cry arose of 'Treason! Treason!' and the com- 
batants, retreating on either side, began to exchange shots with 
as much fury as ever. Undismayed by the storm of balls 
which incessantly flew over his head from all quarters, the 
prelate advanced slowly, attended by his chaplains, to the sum- 
mit of the barricade. One of them had his hat pierced by 
three balls, but the archbishop himself, almost by a miracle, 
escaped while on the top. He had descended three steps on 
the other side, when he was pierced through the loins by a shot 
from a window. The insurgents, horror-struck, approached 
him where he fell, stanched the wound, which at once was 
seen to be mortal, and carried him to a neighboring hospital. 
When told that he had only a few minutes to live, 'God be 
praised!' he said, 'and may He accept my life as an expiation 
for my omissions during my episcopacy, and as an offering for 
the salvation of this misguided people.' With these words he 
expired." 

As soon as the archbishop's death was known, the insur- 
gents made proposals to capitulate, on condition of a gen- 
eral pardon. This Cavaignac refused, saying that they 
must surrender unconditionally. The fight therefore lasted 
until daybreak. Then the insurgents capitulated, and all 
was over. 

No one ever knew how many fell. Six generals were 
killed or mortally wounded. Ten thousand bodies were 
recognized and buried, and it is said that nearly as many 
more were thrown unclaimed into the Seine. There were 
fifteen thousand prisoners, of whom three thousand died of 
jail-fever. Thousands were sent to Cayenne ; thousands 



144 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

to the galleys. This terrible four days' fight cost France 
more lives than any battle of the Empire. 

The insurrection being over, and Cavaignac dictator, the 
next thing was for the' Assembly to make a constitution. 
This constitution was short-lived. A president was to be 
chosen for four years, with re-election as often as might be 
desired. He was to be elected by universal suffrage. He 
was to have a salary of about one hundred and twenty- 
five thousand dollars per annum, and he was to have 
much the same powers as the President of the United 
States. 

There were two principal presidential candidates, — 
Prince Louis Napoleon, who had taken his seat in the Assem- 
bly ; and Cavaignac, who had the power of Government on his 
side, and was sanguine of election. The prince proclaimed 
in letters and placards his deep attachment to the Republic, 
and denounced as his enemies and slanderers all those who 
said he was not firmly resolved to maintain the constitution. 

The result of the election showed Louis Napoleon to 
have had five and a half millions of votes ; Cavaignac one 
and a half million ; Lamartine, who six months before had 
been a popular idol, had nineteen thousand. 

An early friend of Louis Napoleon, who seems to have 
been willing to talk freely of the playmate of her childhood^ 
thus spoke of him to an English traveller. 

" He is," she said, " a strange being. His mind wants keep- 
ing. A trifle close to his eyes hides from him large objects at 
a distance. . . . The great progress in political knowledge 
made by the higher classes in France from 1815 to 1848 is lost 
on him. When we met in 1836, after three years' separation, I 
was struck by his backwardness in political knowledge. Up to 
1848 he never had lived in France except as a child or a captive. 
His opinions and feelings were those of the French masses from 
1799 to 1812. Though these opinions had been modified in the 
minds of the higher classes, they were, in 1848, those of the 
multitude, who despise parliamentary government, despise 
the pope, despise the priests, delight in profuse expenditure, de- 
light in war, hold the Rhine to be our national frontier, and that it 
is our duty to seize all that Hes on the French side. The people 



Q 


t-i 


M^^ • 1 


^P^^^^^F 


t 


1 





LOUIS NAPOLEON. 

{The Prince President.') 



LAMAR TINE AND THE SECOND REPUBLIC, 1 45 

and he were of one mind. I have no doubt that the little he 
may have heard, and the less that he attended to, from the per- 
sons he saw between 1848 and 1852 about liberty, self-govern- 
ment, economy, the supremacy of the Assembly, respect for 
foreign nations, and fidelity to treaties, appeared to him the 
silliest talk imaginable. So it would have appeared to ail in the 
lower classes of France ; so it would have appeared to the army, 
which is drawn from those classes, and exaggerates their politi- 
cal views." 

" The prince president is romantic, impulsive, and bizarre,^'' 
said one of his officials to the same English gentleman, " indo- 
lent, vain, good-natured, selfish, fearing and disliking his supe- 
riors ; ... he loves to excite the astonishment of the populace. 
As a child he liked best bad children, — as a man, bad men." 

But one good quality he had pre-eminently, — no man 
was ever more grateful for kindness, or more indulgent to 
his friends. 

Such was the man, untried, uneducated in French politics, 
covered with ridicule, and even of doubtful courage, whom 
the voices of five and a half millions of French voters called 
to the presidential chair. It was to the country Louis Na- 
poleon had appealed, to the rural population of France as 
against the dangerous classes in the great cities. Paris had 
for sixty years been making revolutions for the country ; now 
it was the turn of the provincials, who said they were tired 
of receiving a new Government by mail whenever it pleased 
the Parisians to make one. Paris contained one hundred 
and forty thousand SociaHsts, besides Anarchists and Red 
Republicans. With these the rural population had no sym- 
pathy. Louis Napoleon was not chosen by their votes, nor 
by those of their sympathizers in other great cities. His 
success was in the rural districts alone. 

His elecdon was a great disappointment to the Assembly, 
and from the first moment the prince president and that 
body were antagonistic to each other. The president 
claimed to hold his powers from the people, and to be in 
no way under the control of the Assembly ; the Assembly 
was forever talking of deposing him, of imprisoning him at 
Vincennes, and so on. 

ID 



146 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Immediately after his election the prince president found 
it very difficult to form a cabinet. After being repulsed in 
various quarters, he sent a confidential messenger to Lamar- 
tine, asking him to meet him by night on horseback in a 
dark alley in the Bois de Boulogne. After listening to his 
rival's appeal for assistance in this emergency, Lamartine 
frankly told him that for various reasons he felt himself to 
be not only the most useless, but the most dangerous minister 
a new Government could select. He said, " I should ruin 
myself without serving you." The prince seemed grieved. 
" With regard to popularity," he answered, with a smile, '' I 
have enough for both of us." " I know it," replied Lamar- 
tine ; " but having, as I think, given you unanswerable 
reasons for my refusal, I give you my word of honor that if 
by to-morrow you have not been able to win over and to 
rally to you the men I will name, I will accept the post of 
prime minister in default of others." 

Before morning the prince president had succeeded else- 
where ; but he retained a sincere respect and regard for 
Lamartine, who after this incident fades out of the page 
of history. He lived a few years longer ; but he was op- 
pressed by pecuniary difficulties, from which neither his 
literary industry, nor the assistance of the Government, nor 
the subscriptions of his friends, seemed able to extricate 
him. Several times Milly, the dear home of his childhood, 
was put up for sale by his creditors. It was more than once 
rescued on his behalf, but in the end was sold. 

Lamartine was buried with national honors ; but among 
all the chances and changes that have distracted the atten- 
tion of his countrymen from his career, he does not seem 
to have received from the world or the French nation all 
the honor, praise, and gratitude that his memory deserves. 

Louis Napoleon, who had all his hfe dreamed of being 
the French emperor, though he took care to repudiate such 
an idea in all his public speeches, had not been president 
of the Republic six weeks before he read a plan for a coup 
d'etat to General Changarnier, who utterly refused to listen 
to it. 



LAMAKTINE AND THE SECOND REPUBLIC. l^'J 

We need not here dwell on the struggles that went on 
between the prince president and the Assembly, from De- 
cember, 1848, to November, 1851. It is enough to say 
that the Chamber, from being the governing power in 
France, found itself reduced to a mere legislative body 
much hampered by the mistrust and contempt of the Ex- 
ecutive. Its members of course hated " the Man at the 
Elys^e," or '' Celui-ci," as they called him. The Socialists 
hated the Assembly even more than they hated the president. 
The army was all for him. The bourgeoisie were thankful 
that under his rule they might at least find protection from 
Socialism and anarchy. 

From the election of Prince Louis to the coiip d'etat in 
December, 185 1, there were four serious emeutes in Paris, 
and once the city was in a state of siege. It was estimated 
that to put down the smallest of these revolts cost two hun- 
dred thousand dollars. 

Foreign nations were too busy with their own affairs in 
1848 to have time to meddle with the Government of Louis 
Napoleon, — indeed, Russia and Prussia were much obliged 
to him for keeping out the Orleans family, whom they by 
no means wished to see on the French throne. 

One thing that Louis Napoleon did to gain favor with the 
country party caused great indignation among genuine re- 
publicans, and, indeed, throughout Europe. This was the 
part he took against the Republic of Rome. 

Pio Nono, having been elected pope in 1846, had started 
on his career as a liberal pontiff and ruler; but before 1848 
he had disappointed the expectations of all parties, and 
had fled from Rome to Gaeta, where Ferdinand, king of 
the Two Sicilies (commonly known as King Bomba) had 
also taken refuge. Lamartine, at the time his power ceased, 
had been fitting out a French army to lend help to the 
Romans if they should be attacked by the Austrians, and if 
need were, to protect the pope, who before his flight was 
supposed to be opposed to Austrian domination. Louis 
Napoleon ordered General Oudinot, who commanded the 
French forces, to disembark his troops at Civita Vecchia, 



148 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

and either to occupy Rome peaceably, or to attack the rev- 
olutionists. A battle was fought, and the French worsted ; 
but they ended by gaining the city and holding it, putting 
down the Roman republicans, and handing the city over to 
Austrian and papal vengeance on Pio Nono's return. 

The new president, anxious to strengthen his popularity 
in the provinces, made several tours. Everywhere, as the 
nephew of his uncle, he was received with wild enthusiasm. 
He was not a man to captivate by his manners on public 
occasions, neither was he a ready speaker ; but he looked 
his best on horseback, and above all, there was in his favor, 
among the middle class of Frenchmen, a very potent feeling, 
— the dread of change. 

As a deputy, before his election by the country as its 
president, he used to sit in the Chamber silent and alone, 
pitied by some, and neglected by all. Silence, indeed, was 
necessary to his success, for, " silent and smoking, he matured 
his plans." One of the first things he did when he became 
president was to attempt to get possession of all papers in 
the archives concerning his conduct at Strasburg and 
Boulogne. 

There had been a new Assembly elected. It had few 
of the old republican leaders in it, but the Left and the 
Right and half the Centre were opposed to the prince 
president. The Left in the French Chamber means the 
Red Repubhcans ; the Right, those members who are in 
favor of monarchy ; the Centre, the Moderates, who are will- 
ing to accept any good government. 

One of the objects of this Assembly, which foresaw that a 
coup d'etat might be at hand, was to get command of a little 
army for its own protection. It appointed as commander 
of this force General Changarnier, with whom the prince 
president had recently quarrelled, and designated four of 
its members, whom it called qucestors, to look into all mat- 
ters relating to its safety. 

The constitution was to be revised by this Assembly. 
Nobody cared much about the constitution, which had not 
had time to acquire any hold on the afifections of the people. 



LA MAR TINE AND THE SECOND REPUBLIC. 149 

and Louis Napoleon had recently acquired popularity with 
the turbulent part of the population of Paris by opposing a 
measure calculated to restrict universal suffrage, and to pre- 
vent tramps, aliens, and ex-convicts from voting at elections. 
The prince president, who wanted, for his own purposes, as 
large a popular vote as possible, was opposed to any restric- 
tions on the suffrage. 

Such was the condition of things on Nov. 26, 185 1, 
when Louis Napoleon summoned the principal generals and 
colonels of the troops in and around Paris to meet him at 
the Elysee. At this meeting they all swore to support the 
president if called upon to do so, and never to tell of this 
engagement. They kept the secret for five years. 

Meantime the Assembly on its part was hatching a con- 
spiracy to overturn the president and send him to a dun- 
geon at Vincennes ; while all who refused to support its 
authority were to be declared guilty of treason. 

The three men called the generals of the Army of Africa, 
— namely, Cavaignac, Changarnier, and Lamoriciere, — 
were opposed to the prince president. They were either 
Republicans or Orleanists. 

Thus the crisis approached. Each party was ready to 
spring upon the other. Again France was to experience a 
political convulsion, and the party that moved first would 
gain the day. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



THE COUP D ETAT. 



"TN voting for Louis Napoleon," says Alison, "the 
X French rural population understood that it was 
voting for an emperor and for the repression of the 
clubs in Paris. It seemed to Frenchmen in the country 
that they had only a choice between Jacobin rule by the 
clubs, or Napoleonic rule by an emperor." So, though 
Louis Napoleon, when he presented himself as a presiden- 
tial candidate, assured the electors, " I am not so ambi- 
tious as to dream of empire, of war, nor of subversive 
theories ; educated in free countries and in the school of 
misfortune, I shall always remain faithful to the duties that 
your suffrages impose on me," public sentiment abroad and 
at home, whether hostile or favorable, expected that he 
would before long make himself virtually, if not in name, the 
Emperor Napoleon. Indeed, the array was encouraged by 
its officers to shout, "Vive I'empereur ! " and "Vive Napo- 
leon ! " And General Changarnier, for disapproving of 
these demonstrations, had been dismissed from his post as 
military commander at the capital. He was forthwith, as 
we have seen, appointed to a mihtary command in the 
confidence of the Assembly. 

By the autumn of 1851 Louis Napoleon had fully made 
up his mind as to his coup d'etat, and had arranged all its 
details. He had five intimates, who were his counsellors, — 
De Morny, De Maupas, De Persigny, Fleury, and General 
Saint-Arnaud. 

De Morny has always been reputed to have been the 
half-brother of Louis Napoleon. In 1847 he lived luxuri- 
ously in a small hotel in the Champs Elysees, surrounded 




DUC DE MORNY, 



THE COUP D'ETAT. 



151 



by rare and costly works of art. He had then never been 
considered anything but a man of fashion ; but he proved 
well fitted to keep secrets, to conduct plots, and to do the 
cruellest things in a jocund, off-hand way. 

Saint- Arnaud's name had been originally Jacques Le Roy. 
At one time, under the name of Florival, he had been an 
actor in Paris at one of the suburban theatres. He had 
served three times in the French army, and been twice 
dismissed for conduct unbecoming an officer. His third 
term of service for his country was in a foreign legion, 
composed of dare-devils of all nations, who enrolled them- 
selves in the army of Algeria. There his brilliant bravery 
had a large share in securing the capture of Constantine. 
He rose rapidly to be a general, was an excellent admin- 
istrator, a cultivated and agreeable companion, perfectly 
unscrupulous, and ready to assist in any scheme of what 
he considered necessary cruelty. Fleury, who had been 
sent to Africa to select a military chief fitted to carry out 
the coup d'etat, found Saint-Arnaud the very man to suit 
the purpose of his m.aster. Saint-Arnaud was tall, thin, 
and bony, with close-cropped hair. De Morny used to 
laugh behind his back at the way he said le peuple souve- 
rain, and said he knew as little about the sovereign people 
as about the pronunciation. He spoke English well, for 
he had lived for some years an exile in Leicester Square, 
— the disreputable French quarter of London; this accom- 
plishment was of great service to him during the Crimean 
War. 

De Maupas had been a country prefect, and was eager 
for promotion. Louis Napoleon converted him into his 
Minister of Police. 

Fleury was the simple-hearted and attached friend of his 
master. 

De Persigny, like Saint-Arnaud, had changed his name, 
having begun life as Fialin. 

These five plotted the cotip d'etat^ arranged all its de- 
tails, and kept their own counsel. 

1 De Maupas, Le Coup d'Etat. 



152 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

The generals and colonels in garrison in Paris had been 
sounded, as we have seen, in reference to their allegiance 
to the Great Emperor's nephew, and by the close of 185 1 
all things had been made ready for the proposed coup 
d'etat. 

A coup d'etat is much the same thing as a coup de main, 
— with this difference, that in the political coup de main it 
is the mob that takes the initiative, in the coup d'etat the 
Government ; and the Government generally has the army 
on its side. 

Louis Napoleon and his five associates were about to do 
the most audacious thing in modern history ; but no man 
can deny them the praise awarded to the unjust steward. 
If the thing was to be done, or, in the language of Victor 
Hugo, if the C7ime was to be committed, it could not have 
been more admirably planned or more skilfully executed. 

The world, to all appearance, went on in its usual way. 
The Assembly, on December i, 185 1, was busy discussing 
the project of a railroad to Lyons. That evening M. de 
Morny was at the Opera Comique in company with General 
Changarnier, and the prince president was doing the honors 
as usual in his reception-room at the Elysee. His visage 
was as calm, his manners were as conciliatory and affable, 
as usual. No symptoms of anything extraordinary were to 
be seen, and an approaching municipal election in Paris 
accounted for the arrival of several estafettes and couriers, 
which from time to time called the prince president from 
the room. When the company had taken leave, Saint- 
Arnaud, Maupas, Morny, and a colonel on the staff went 
with the prince president into his smoking-room, where the 
duties of each were assigned to him. Everything was to 
be done by clock-work. Exactly at the hour appointed, 
all the African generals and several of their friends were 
to be arrested. Exactly at the moment indicated, troops 
were to move into position. At so many minutes past six 
A. M. all the printing-offices were to be surrounded. Every 
man who had in any way been prominent in politics since 
the days of Louis Philippe was to be put under arrest. 



THE COUP D'ETAT. 



153 



By seven o'clock in the morning all this had been ac- 
complished. The Parisians awoke to find their walls pla- 
carded by proclamations signed by Prince Louis Napoleon 
as President, De Morny as Minister of the Interior, De 
Maupas as Prefect of Police, and Saint-Arnaud as Minister 
of War. 

These proclamations announced, — 
I. The dissolution of the Assembly. 
11. The restoration of universal suffrage. 

III. A general election on December 14. 

IV. The dissolution of the Council of State. 
V. That Paris was in a state of siege. 

This last meant that any man might be arrested, without 
warrant, at the pleasure of the police. 

Another placard forbade any printer, on pain of death, 
to print any placard not authorized by Government; and 
death likewise was announced for any one who tore down 
a Government placard. 

Louis Napoleon followed this up by an appeal to the 
people. He said he wished the people to judge between 
the Assembly and himself. If France would not support 
him, she must choose another president. In place of the 
constitution of 1848 he proposed one that should make 
the presidential term of office ten years ; he also proposed 
that the president's cabinet should be of his own selection. 

Louis Napoleon had entire confidence that all elections 
by universal suffrage would be in his favor. He had just 
made extensive tours in the provinces, and had been 
received everywhere with enthusiasm. 

Thus far I have given the historical outline of the story ; 
but if we look into Victor Hugo's " Histoire d'un Crime," 
and disentangle its facts from its hysterics, we may receive 
from his personal narrative a vivid idea of what passed in 
Paris from the night of Dec. i, 185 1, to the evening of 
December 4, when all was over. 

Roused early in the morning by members of the Assem- 
bly, who came to announce the events of the night, Victor 
Hugo, to whom genuine republicans who were not Social- 



154 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

ists looked as a leader, was, like all the rest of Paris, taken 
completely by surprise. One of his visitors was a working- 
man, a wood-carver ; of him Hugo eagerly asked : " What 
do the working-men — the people — say as they read the 
placards?" He answered: "Some say one thing, some 
another. The thing has been so done that they cannot 
understand it. Men going to their work are reading the 
placards. Not one in a hundred says anything, and those 
who do, say generally, ' Good ! Universal suffrage is re- 
established. The conservative majority in the Assembly is 
got rid of, — that 's splendid ! Thiers is arrested, — better 
still ! Changarnier is in prison, — bravo ! ' Beneath every 
placard there are men placed to lead the approval. My 
opinion is that the people will approve ! " 

At exactly six that morning, Cavaignac, Changarnier, La- 
moriciere, Thiers, and all those who had lain down to sleep 
as cabinet ministers of the prince president, were roused 
from their beds by officers of cavalry, with orders to dress 
quickly, for they were under arrest. Before each door a 
hackney-coach was waiting, and an escort of two hundred 
Lancers was in a street near by. Resistance seemed useless 
in the face of such precautions, but Victor Hugo and his 
friends were resolved upon a fight. They put their official 
scarves as deputies into their pockets, and started forth to 
see if they could raise the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. But 
their friend the wood-carver had told them truly, — there 
was neither sympathy nor enthusiasm in the streets for the 
constitution that had fallen, the deputies who had been 
placed under arrest, nor for violated political institutions. 

In vain they appealed to the people in the name of the 
law. The mob seemed to consider that provided it had 
universal suffrage, and that the man of its choice were at 
the head of affairs, it had better trust the safety of the 
nation to one man than risk the uncertainties that might 
attend the tyranny of many. 

The frantic efforts made that day by Victor Hugo and a 
few other deputies of the Left to rouse the populace are al- 
most ludicrous. Victor Hugo, no doubt, was a brave man, 



THE CO UP D'E TAT, 1 5 5 

though a very melodramatic one, and he seems to have 
thought that if he could get the soldiers to shoot him, — 
hi7?i, the greatest literary star of France since the death of 
Voltaire, — the notoriety of his death might rouse the 
population. 

Here is one scene in his narrative. He and three of 
his friends, finding that the Faubourg Saint-Antoine gave no 
ear to their appeals, and for once was disinclined to fight, 
decided to return home, and took seats in an omnibus which 
passed them on the Place de la Bastille. 

" We were all glad to get in," says Victor Hugo. " I took it 
much to heart that I had not that morning, when I saw a crowd 
assembled round the Porte Saint-Martin, shouted ' To arms ! ' 
. . . The omnibus started. I was sitting at the end on the 
left, my friend young Armand was beside me. As the omnibus 
moved on, the crowd became more closely packed upon the 
Boulevard. When we reached the narrow ascent near the Porte 
Saint-Martin, a regiment of heavy cavalry met us. The men 
were Cuirassiers. Their horses were in a trot, and their swords 
were drawn. All of a sudden the regiment came to a halt. 
Something was in their way. Their halt detained the om- 
nibus. My heart was stirred. Close before me, a yard from 
me, were Frenchmen turned into Mamelukes, citizen-supporters 
of the RepubHc transformed into the mercenaries of a Second 
Empire ! From my seat I could almost put my hand upon them. 
I could no longer bear the sight. I let down the glass, I put 
my head out of the window, and looked steadily at the close 
line of armed men. Then I shouted : ' Down with Louis Bona- 
parte ! Those who serve traitors are traitors ! ' The nearest 
soldiers turned their faces towards me, and looked dazed with 
astonishment. The rest did not stir. When I shouted, Armand 
let down his glass and thrust half his body out of his window, 
shaking his fist at the soldiers. He too cried out : ' Down with 
all traitors ! ' Our example was contagious. ' Down with 
traitors ! ' cried my other two friends in the omnibus. ' Down 
with the dictator ! ' cried a generous young man who sat beside 
me. All the passengers in the omnibus, except this young man, 
seemed to be filled with terror. ' Hold your tongues ! ' they 
cried; 'you will have us all massacred.' The most frightened 
of them let down his glass and shouted to the soldiers : 'Vive 
le Prince Napoleon ! Vive 1' empereur ! ' The soldiers looked 



156 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

at us in solemn silence. A mounted policeman menaced us 
with his drawn sword. The crowd seemed stupefied. . . . 
The soldiers had no orders to act, so nothing came of it. The 
regiment started at a gallop, so did the omnibus. As long as 
the Cuirassiers were passing, Armand and I, hanging half out 
of our windows, continued to shout at them, ' Down with the 
dictator ! ' " 

This foolhardy and melodramatic performance was one of 
many such scenes, calculated to turn tragedy into farce. 

Meantime, from early morning the hall of the representa- 
tives had been surrounded by soldiers with mortars and 
cannon. As the deputies arrived they were allowed to pass 
the gates, but were not permitted to enter their chamber. 
Their president, or Speaker, M. Dupin, was appealed to. He 
said he could do nothing ; it was hopeless to resist such a 
display of force. At last the representatives, becoming, as 
the soldiers put it, " noisy and troublesome," were collared 
and turned out into the street. One by one the most ex- 
cited were arrested. The remainder decided to go to the 
High Court of Justice and demand a warrant to depose and 
arrest the prince president. But they could not find the 
judges ; they had hidden themselves away. When at last they 
succeeded in discovering the place where they were sitting, 
the police followed closely on their track, and the judges 
were forced to shut up their court and march off, under a 
guard of soldiers. 

The representatives then decided to go to the Mairie of 
the Tenth Arrondissement, and there reorganize into a le- 
gislative body. They were nearly all members belonging 
to the Right, but they were as indignant as the Left at the 
outrage. 

They formed into a column, marching two and two 
abreast ; but the Left would not march with the Right, so 
they proceeded in two parallel columns, one on each side 
of the way. Arrived at the Mairie, they made Jules de Las- 
teyrie, Lafayette's grandson, president pro tempore^ and pro- 
ceeded to pass a decree deposing Louis Bonaparte. Scarcely 
was this done when a battalion of cavalry arrived, and the 



THE COUP D'ETAT. 



157 



legislators soon perceived that they were prisoners. After a 
great deal of altercation with the soldiers, they were marched 
off to a barrack-yard on the Quai d'Orsay. 

When all this was reported to De Morny, he remarked : 
" It is well ; but they are the last deputies who will be made 
priso7ierSy' — meaning that any others would be shot. 

It was half-past three when the deputies were locked into 
the barrack-yard. The December day was cold and frosty, 
the sky overcast. The first thing they did was to call the 
roll. There were two hundred and twenty of them, out of 
a total membership of seven hundred and fifty. Among 
them were many of the best and most conservative men of 
France. There was Jules Grevy, the future president (M. 
Thiers was already in prison) ; Jules de Lasteyrie ; Sainte- 
Beuve, the great critic ; Berryer, the great lawyer ; the 
Due de Luynes, the richest man in France ; and Odillon 
Barrot, the popular idol at the commencement of the late 
revolution. De Tocqueville was there, the great writer 
on America ; General Oudinot, and several other generals ; 
the Due de Broglie, great-grandson of Madame de Stael ; 
Eugene Sue, the novelist ; Coquerel, the French Protes- 
tant preacher; and M. de Remusat, the son of that lady 
who has given us her experiences of the court of the 
First Napoleon. 

For two hours the deputies remained in the open air ; 
then they were transferred at dark to the third story of a 
wing of the barracks. They found themselves in two long 
halls, with low ceilings and dirty walls, used as the soldiers' 
dormitories. They had no furniture but some wooden 
benches. M. de Tocqueville was quite ill. The rooms 
were bitterly cold. An hour or so later, three representa- 
tives, who had demanded to share the fate of their col- 
leagues, were brought in. One of these was the Marquis 
de La Vallette, who had married Mrs. Welles, a very beau- 
tiful and fascinating American lady. 

Night came. Most of the prisoners had eaten nothing 
since morning. A collection of five francs apiece was 
taken up amongst them, and a cold collation was provided 



158 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

by a neighboring restaurant. They ate standing, with their 
plates in their hands. '' Just Hke a supper at a ball," re- 
marked one of the younger ones. They had very few 
drinking-glasses. Right and Left, having been reconciled 
by this time, drank together. " Equality and Fraternity ! " 
remarked a conservative nobleman as he drank with one 
of the Red Republicans. "Ah," was the answer, "but not 
Liberty." Eight more prisoners before long were added 
to their number, and three were released, — one because 
he was eighty, one because of his wife's illness, and one 
because he had been accidentally wounded. At last, sixty 
mattresses were brought in, for two hundred and twenty-five 
men. They had no blankets, and had to trust to their 
great-coats to keep them from the cold. A few of them 
went to sleep, but were roused at midnight by an order 
that their quarters must be changed. They were taken 
down by parties to all the voitui^es celliilaij^es (or Black 
Marias) in Paris. Each deputy was put into a separate 
cell, where he sat cramped and freezing for hours. It was 
nearly seven a. m., December 3, before these prison-vans 
were ready to start. 

Some went to the great prison of Mazas, some to Vin- 
cennes, some to Fort Val^rien. At Mazas they were 
treated in all respects like criminals, except that they 
were not allowed a daily walk, — a privilege the knaves and 
malefactors obtained. Two deputies only were favored 
with beds, — M. Thiers and another elderly man. M. 
Grevy had none, nor the African generals, the ex-dictator 
Cavaignac among them. 

Such of the members of the Left as were not in prison 
spent December 2, 3, and 4 in endeavoring to assemble 
and reorganize the remains of the Assembly ; but the police 
followed them up too closely. 

A few barricades were raised, and the first man killed on 
one of them was named Baudin. He threw away his life 
recklessly and to no purpose ; but it is the fashion among 
advanced republicans to this day to decorate his grave 
and to honor his memory with communistic speeches. He 



THE COUP D'ETAT. 



159 



was rather a fine young fellow, and might have lived to do 
the State some service. 

By the night of December 3 there was a good deal of 
commotion in the city. Two days of disorganization, idle- 
ness, and excitement had made workmen more inflamma- 
ble than when they remained passive under the appeals 
of Victor Hugo. The remainder of the story, so far as it 
concerns the uprising and massacre in the streets of Paris, 
I will borrow from the experience of an American eye- 
witness ; but first I will tell what happened to the African 
generals imprisoned at Mazas. 

On the night of December 3 the station of the great rail- 
road to the north was filled with soldiers. About six o'clock 
the next morning two voitiires celliUaii-es drove up, each 
attended by a light carriage containing an especial agent 
sent by the police. These vehicles, just as they were, were 
rolled on to trucks, and the train moved out of the station. 
There were eight cells in each voiture cellulaire ; four were 
occupied by prisoners, four by pohcemen. It was bitterly 
cold, and in the second of the prison-vans the police, half 
frozen, opened the doors of their cells and came out to 
walk up and down and warm themselves. Then a voice 
was heard from one of the prisoners. " ^/z, ^a, it is 
bitterly cold here. Could n't one be allowed to rcrlight one's 
cigar? " At this another voice called out : " Tiens I is that 
you, Lamoriciere? Good morning!" *' Good morning, 
Cavaignac," replied the other. Then a third voice came from 
the third cell. It was that of Changarnier. " Messiettrs 
les Generaiix,'' cried a fourth, "do not forget that I am one 
of you." The speaker was a qucestor of the Chamber of 
Deputies, a man charged with the safety of the National 
Assembly. The generals who had spoken, and Bedeau, who 
was in the next van, were, with the exception of Bugeaud, 
the four leading commanders in the French army. The 
other four prisoners were Colonel Charras, General Le Flo, 
Baze the qucestor, and a deputy. Count Roger {du Nord) . 
At midnight they had been roused from sleep and ordered 
to dress immediately. " Are we going to be shot? " asked 



l60 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Charras, but no answer was vouchsafed him. They were 
put into the voitures cellulaires, each knowing nothing of 
the presence of the others ; even the pohce who were in 
charge of them, had no idea what prisoners they had in 
custody. After this recognition between the generals, they 
were permitted to come out of their cells and walk up and 
down the van to warm themselves, taking care, however, 
that they were not seen at liberty by the special agents in 
the carriages attending on each van. 

On reaching Ham, the former prison of Louis Napo- 
leon, Cavaignac, whom he had succeeded as ruler of 
France, was put into his former chamber. " Chassez 
croissez," said De Morny, when the report was made to 
him. 

December 4, the last day of the struggle, was by far the 
most terrible. Louis Napoleon, in spite of many benefits 
which France and the world owe him, will never be cleansed 
from the stain that the outrages of that day have left upon 
his memory. It may be said, however, that the details of 
the coiLp d''etat were left to his subordinates, and that 
probably both success and infamy are due in large part to 
the flippant Morny. 

It was a cold, drizzling day. Such barricades as had 
been built were very slimly defended, and with no enthu- 
siasm. The insurgents were short of ammunition, nor did 
the troops attack them with much vigor. In fact, the sol- 
diers were but few, for all were being concentrated on that 
part of the Boulevard where strangers do their shopping 
and eat ices at Tortoni's. The programme for that day 
was not fighting, but a massacre. 

The American gentleman whose narrative I am about to 
quote, says, — 

" On December 3 there was more excitement in the streets 
than there had been on December 2. The secret societies had 
got to work. The Reds were recovering from their astonish- 
ment. Ex-members of the National Assembly had harangued 
the multitude and circulated addresses calculated to rouse the 
people to resistance. On the 4th there was not much stirring. 



THE COUP D'ETAT. l6l 

The shops were closed. I went into the heart of the city on 
business, where I soon found myself in the midst of a panic- 
stricken crowd. The residents were closing their doors and 
barricading their windows. Some said the Faubourgs were 
rising; some that the troops were approaching, with cannon. 

" Hearing there were barricades at the Porte Saint-Denis, I 
pushed directly for the spot. The work was going on bravely. 
Stagings had been torn from unfinished houses, iron railings 
from the magnificent gateway; trees were cut down, street sheds 
demolished; carts, carriages,. and omnibuses were being trium- 
phantly dragged from hiding-places to the monstrous pile. 
There were not very many men at work, but those who were 
engaged, labored like beavers. Blouses and broadcloth were 
about equally mixed. A few men armed with cutlasses, mus- 
kets, and pistols appeared to act as leaders ; soon a search was 
made in neighboring houses for arms. I was surprised to see 
how many boys were in the ranks of the insurgents. They 
went to work as if insurrection were a frolic. I shuddered as I 
thought how many of them would be shot or bayoneted before 
night fell. The sentiments of the spectators seemed different. 
Some said, ' Let them go ahead. They want to plunder and 
kill: they v/ill soon be taught a good lesson.' Others en- 
couraged the barricade-makers. One man, hearing that I 
was an American, said with a sigh, ' Ah, you live in a true 
republic ! ' 

"After remaining two hours at this barricade, and seeing no 
fighting, I turned on to the Boulevard. There, troops were 
advancing slowly, with loaded cannon. From time to time they 
charged the people, who sHpped out of the way by side streets, 
as I did myself. Coming back on the Boulevard des Italiens, I 
found the entire length of the Boulevards, from the Porte Saint- 
Denis to the Madeleine, filled with troops in order of battle. 
In the novelty and beauty of the scene I quite lost sight of 
danger. At one time they chased away the crowd ; but soon 
sentinels were removed from the corners of the streets, and as 
many spectators as thought proper pressed on to the sidewalks 
of the Boulevard. . . . Opposite to me was the Seventh Lancers, 
— a fine corps, recently arrived in Paris. Suddenly, at the upper 
end of the line, the discharge of a cannon was heard, followed 
by a blaze of musketry and a general charge. The spectators 
on the Boulevard took to flight. They pitched into open doors, 
or loudly demanded entrance at the closed ones. I was fortu- 
nate enough to get into a neighboring carriage-way, through 
the grated porte-cochere of which I could see what was going 

II 



1 62 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

on. The firing was tremendous. Volley after volley followed 
so fast that it seemed like one continued peal of thunder. 
Suddenly there was a louder and a nearer crash. The cavalry 
in front of me wavered ; and then, as if struck by a panic, 
turned and rushed in disorder down the street, making the 
ground tremble under their tread. What could have occurred ? 
In a few minutes they came charging back, firing their pistols 
on all sides. Then came a quick succession of orders: 'Shut 
all windows ! Keep out of sight ! Open the blinds ! ' etc. It 
seemed that unexpected shots had been fired from some of the 
windows on the soldiers, from which they had suffered so much 
as to cause a recoil. The roll of firearms was now terrific. 
Mortars and cannon were fired at short-range point-blank at 
the suspicious houses, which were then carried by assault. 
The rattle of small shot against windows and walls was in- 
cessant. This, too, was in the finest part of the Boulevard. 
Costly houses were completely riddled, their fronts were knocked 
in, their floors pierced with balls. The windows throughout 
the neighborhood were destroyed by the concussion of the can- 
non. Of the hairbreadth escape of some of the inmates, and 
of the general destruction of property, I need not speak. The 
Government afterwards footed all the bills for the last. The 
firing continued for more than an hour, and then receded to 
more distant parts of the city; for the field of combat embraced 
an area of several miles, and there were forty thousand troops 
engaged in it. As soon as I could do so with safety, I left my 
covert, and endeavored to see what had happened elsewhere. 
But troops guarded every possible avenue, and fired on all 
those who attempted to approach any interdicted spot. I no- 
ticed some pools of blood, but the corpses had been removed; 
in a cross-street I saw a well-dressed man gasping his fife away 
on a rude stretcher. Those around him told me he had six 
balls in him. In the Rue Richelieu there was the corpse of a 
young girl. Somebody had placed lighted candles at its head 
and feet. When I reached the parts of the town removed 
from the surveillance of the soldiers, I noticed a bitter feeling 
among the better classes for the day's work. The slaughter 
had been amongst those of their own class, which was unusual. 
The number slain was at first, of course, exaggerated, but it was 
with no gratifying emotions that we could reduce it a few 
hundreds. It was civil war, — fratricide. I reached home in- 
dignant and mournful." 

Victor Hugo says of the massacre : " There were no 
combatants on the side of the people. There could not be 



THE COUP D'ETAT. 1 63 

said to have been any mob, though the Boulevard was 
crowded with spectators. Then, as the wounded and 
terrified rushed into houses, the soldiers rushed in after 
them." 

Tortoni's was gutted ; the fashionable Baths of Jouvence 
were torn to pieces ; one hotel was demolished ; twenty- 
eight houses were so injured that they had next day to be 
pulled down. Peaceful shopkeepers, dressmakers, and Eng- 
lish strangers were among the slain, — an old man with an 
umbrella, a young man with an opera-glass. In the house 
where Jouvin sold gloves there was a pile of dead bodies. 

The firing was over by four p. m. It has never been known 
how many were massacred. Some said twenty-five hundred, 
some made it five hundred, and almost every person killed 
was, not a Red combatant, but an innocent victim. 

Thus Louis Napoleon made himself master of Paris. 
The army was all for him, the masses were apathetic, the 
rural population w^as on his side. A few weeks later a ple- 
biscite made him emperor. 

The coup d'etat having succeeded, most Frenchmen 
gave in their adhesion to its author. It remained only to 
dispose of the prisoners. Without any preliminary investi- 
gation, squads of them were shot, chiefly in the court-yard 
of the Prefecture of Police. All deputies of the Left were 
sent into exile, except some who were imprisoned in Alge- 
rine fortresses or sent to Cayenne, — the French political 
penal colony at that period. 

Victor Hugo remained a fortnight in hiding, believing, 
on the authority of Alexandre Dumas, that a price was set 
upon his head. He gives some moving accounts of little 
children whom he saw lying in their blood on the evening 
of the massacre. His chief associates nearly all escaped 
arrest, and got away from France in various disguises. 
Their adventures are all of them very picturesque, and some 
are very amusing. 

Several of the eight prisoners at Ham suffered much from 
dampness. Lamoriciere, indeed, contracted permanent 
rheumatism during his imprisonment. He begged earnestly 



164 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

to be allowed to write to his wife, but was permitted to send 
her only three words, without date : " I am well." 

On the night of January 6, the commandant of the for- 
tress, in full uniform, accompanied by a Government agent, 
entered the sleeping-room of each prisoner, and ordered 
him to rise and dress, as he was to be sent immediately into 
exile under charge of two agents of police detailed to ac- 
company him over the frontier. Nor was he to travel under 
his own name, a travelling alias having been provided for 
him. At the railroad station at Creil, Colonel Charras met 
Changarnier. " Tiens, Ghieral ! " he cried, " is that you? 
I am travelling under the name of Vincent." "Andl,"re- 
phed Changarnier, " am called Leblanc." Each was placed 
with his two pohce agents in a separate carriage. The lat- 
ter were armed. Their orders were to treat their prisoners 
with respect, but in case of necessity to shoot them. 

The journey was made without incident until they reached 
Valenciennes, a place very near the frontier line between 
France and Belgium. There, as the coup d'etat had proved 
a success, official zeal was in the ascendency. The police 
commissioner of Valenciennes examined the passports. As 
he was taking Leblanc's into his hand, he recognized the 
man before him. He started, and cried out : " You are 
General Changarnier ! " " That is no affair of mine at 
present," said the general. At once the police agents in- 
terposed, and assured the commissioner that the passports 
were all in order. Nothing they could say would convince 
him of the fact. The prefect and town authorities, proud of 
their own sagacity in capturing State prisoners who were 
endeavoring to escape from France, held them in custody 
while they sent word of their exploit to Paris. They at 
once received orders to put all the party on the train for 
Belgium. 

Charras was liberated at Brussels, Changarnier at Mons, 
Lamoriciere was carried to Cologne, M. Baze to Aix-la- 
Chapelle. They were not released at the same place nor at 
the same time, Louis Napoleon having said that safety re- 
quired that a space should be put between the generals. 




EUGENIE 



CHAPTER IX. 



THE EMPEROR S MARRIAGE. 



A PLEBISCITE — Louis Napoleon's political panacea 
— was ordered Dec. 20, 1851, two weeks after the 
coup (Tetaty to say if the people of France approved or dis- 
approved the usurpation of the prince president. The na- 
tional approval as expressed in this plebiscite was overwhelm- 
ing. Each peasant and artisan seemed to fancy he was 
voting to revive the past glories of France, when expressing 
his approval of a Prince Napoleon. The more thoughtful 
voters, like M. de Montalembert, considered that the coup 
d'etat was a crushing blow struck at Red Republican- 
ism, Communism, the International Society, and disorder 
generally. 

For a while the prince president governed by decrees ; 
then a new legislative body was assembled. Its first duty 
was to revise the constitution. The republican constitution 
of 1850 was in the main re-adopted, but with one impor- 
tant alteration. The prince president was to be turned 
into the Emperor Napoleon III., and the throne was to be 
hereditary in his family. 

After the passage of this measure it was submitted by 
2,x\Q\h.^x plebiscite to the people. The plebiscite is a univer- 
sal suffrage vote of yes or no, in answer to some question put 
by the Government to the nation. The question this time 
was: Shall the prince president become emperor? There 
were 7,800,000 ayes, and 224,000 noes. 

When the news of this overwhelming success reached the 
Elysee, Louis Napoleon sat so still and unmoved, smoking 
his cigar, that his cousin, Madame Baiocchi, rushing up to 



1 66 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

him, shook him, and exclaimed : " Is it possible that you 
are made of stone? " 

Having thus secured his elevation by the almost univer- 
sal consent of Frenchmen, the new emperor's next step 
was to insure his dynasty by a marriage that might prob- 
ably give heirs to the throne. He chose the title Napoleon 
HI. because the son of the Great Napoleon had been 
Napoleon H. for a few days after his father's abdication at 
Fontainebleau in 1814. The next heir to the imperial 
dignities (Lucien Bonaparte having refused anything of the 
kind for himself or for his family) was Jerome Napoleon, 
familiarly called Plon-Plon. He was the only son of Je- 
rome Bonaparte and the Princess Catherine of Wiirtemberg. 
But Prince Napoleon, though clever, was wilful and eccen- 
tric, and made a boast of being a Red Republican ; more- 
over, his father's Baltimore marriage had made his legitimacy 
more than doubtful, — at any rate, Louis Napoleon was by 
no means desirous of passing on to him the succession to 
the empire ; and being now forty- four years old, he was 
desirous of marrying as soon as possible. 

When a boy, it had been proposed to marry him to his 
cousin Mathilde, and something like an attachment had 
sprung up between them ; but after his fiasco at Strasburg 
he was no longer considered an eligible suitor either for 
Princess Mathilde or another cousin who had been named 
for him, a princess of Baden. Princess Mathilde was mar- 
ried to the Russian banker. Prince Demidorff; but when 
Louis Napoleon became prince president, he requested her 
to preside at the Elys^e. 

The new emperor, or his advisers, looked round at the 
various marriageable princesses belonging to the smaller 
courts of Germany. The sister of that Prince Leopold of 
Hohenzollern whose selection for the throne of Spain led 
afterwards to the Franco-Prussian war, was spoken of; but 
the lady most seriously considered was the Princess Adelaide 
of Hohenlohe. She was daughter of Queen Victoria's half- 
sister Feodora ; and to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, 
as heads of the family, the matter was referred. A recent 



THE EMPEROR'S MARRIAGE. 167 

memoir-writer tells us of seeing the queen at Windsor 
when the matter was under discussion. The queen and 
her husband were apparently not averse to the alKance 
hesitating only on the grounds of religion and morals ; but 
it is doubtful how far the new emperor went personally in 
the affair. His inclination had for some time pointed to 
the reigning beauty of Paris, Mademoiselle Eugenie de 
Montijo. 

This young lady's grandfather was Captain Fitzpatrick, of 
a good old Scottish family, which had in past times married 
with the Stuarts. Captain Fitzpatrick had been American 
consul at a port in southern Spain. He had a particularly 
charming daughter, who made a brilliant Spanish marriage, 
her husband being the Count de Teba (or Marquis de 
Montijo, for he bore both titles). The Montijos were 
connected with the grandest ducal families in Spain and 
Portugal, and even with the royal families of those nations. 

The Count de Teba died while his two daughters were 
young, and they were left under the guardianship of their 
very charming mother. The elder married the Duke of 
Alva ; the younger became the Empress Eugenie. 

Eugenie was for some time at school in England at Clif- 
ton. She was described by those who knew her there as 
a pretty, sprightly little girl, much given to independence, 
and something of a tomboy, — a character there is reason 
to think she preserved until it was modified by the exigen- 
cies of her position. 

Mr. George Ticknor, of Boston, frequently mentioned 
Madame de Teba to his friends as a singularly charming 
woman. In 18 18 he wrote home to a friend in America : 

" I knew Madame de Teba in Madrid, and from what I saw 
of her there and at Malaga, I do not doubt she is the most 
cultivated and interesting woman in Spain. Young, beautiful, 
educated strictly by her mother, a Scotchwoman, — who for this 
purpose carried her to London and kept her there six or seven 
years, — possessing extraordinary talents, and giving an air of 
originality to all she says and does, she unites in a most 
bewitching manner the Andalusian sfrace and frankness to a 



1 68 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

French facility in her manners and a genuine Enghsh thorough- 
ness in her knowledge and accomplishments. She knows the 
chief modern languages well, and feels their different charac- 
ters, and estimates their literature aright. She has the foreign 
accomplishments of singing, painting, playing, etc., joined to the 
natural one of dancing, in a high degree. In conversation she 
is brilliant and original, yet with all this she is a true Spaniard, 
and as full of Spanish feehngs as she is of talent and culture." 

Washington Irving, in 1853, thirty-five years later, writing 
to his nephew, speaks in equal praise of Madame de Teba. 

" I beheve I told you," he says, " that I knew the grandfather 
of the empress, old Mr. Fitzpatrick. In 1827 I was in the 
house of his son-in-law, Count Teba, at Granada, a gallant, 
intelligent gentleman, much cut up in the wars, having lost 
an eye and been maimed in a leg and hand. Some years after, 
in Madrid, I was invited to the house of his widow, Madame de 
Montijo, one of the leaders of ton. She received me with the 
warmth and eagerness of an old friend. She claimed me as 
the friend of her late husband. She subsequently introduced 
me to the little girls I had known in Granada, 7iow fashionable 
belles in Madrid." 

In some lines of Walter Savage Landor, Madame de 
Montijo was addressed as a " lode-star of her sex." 

The Marquis de Montijo had been an adherent of Joseph 
Bonaparte while the latter was king of Spain, and his eye 
had been put out at the battle of Salamanca. He was a 
liberal in politics, and his house was always open to culti- 
vated men. 

Such was the ancestry of the beautiful young lady who, 
tall, fair, and graceful, with hair like one of Titian's beauties, 
was travelling with her mother from capital to capital, after 
the marriage of her sister to the Duke of Alva, and who 
spent the winters of 1850, 1851, and 1852 in the French 
capital. Mademoiselle Eugenie had conceived a romantic 
admiration for the young prince who at Strasburg and 
Boulogne had been so unfortunate. Her father had been 
a stanch adherent of Bonaparte, and she is said to have 
pleaded with her mother at one time to visit the prisoner 
at Ham and to place her fortune at his disposal. 



THE EMPEROR'S MARRIAGE. 1 69 

This circumstance, when confided to the prince presi- 
dent, disposed him to be interested in the young lady. She 
and her mother were often at the Elysee, at Fontainebleau, 
and at Compiegne. Mademoiselle de Montijo was a superb 
horsewoman, and riding was the emperor's especial personal 
accomplishment. On one occasion they got lost together 
in the forest at Compiegne, and then society began to make 
remarks upon their intimacy. 

The emperor was indeed most seriously in love with 
Mademoiselle de Montijo. It is said, on the authority 
of M. de Goncourt, that in one of their rides he asked her, 
with strange frankness, if she had ever been in love with 
any man. She answered with equal frankness, " I may 
have had fancies, sire, but I have never forgotten that I was 
Mademoiselle de Montijo." ^ 

Such a project of marriage was not approved by the em- 
peror's family, it was not favored by his ministers, and the 
ladies of his court were all astir. 

At a ball given on New Year's Day, 1853, by the emperor 
at the Tuileries, the wife of a cabinet minister was rude and 
insulting to Mademoiselle de Montijo. Seeing that she 
looked troubled, the emperor inquired the cause ; and 
when he knew it, he said quietly : " To-morrow no one 
will dare to insult you again." There is also a story, which 
seems to rest on good authority, that a few weeks before 
this, at Compiegne, he had placed a crown of oak-leaves on 
her head, saying : " I hope soon to replace it with a better 
one." ^ Like the Empress Josephine, she had had it pro- 
phesied to her in her girlhood that she should one day wear 
a crown. 

The day after the occurrence at the ball at the Tuileries, 
the Due de Morny waited on Madame de Montijo with a 
letter from the emperor, formally requesting her daughter's 
hand. 

The ladies, after this, removed to the Elysee, which was 
given to them, and preparations for the marriage went on 
apace. 

1 Pierre de Lano, La Cour de L'Empereur Napoleon III. 

2 Jerrold, Life of Napoleon III. 



I/O FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

In less than a month afterwards Eugenie de Montijo was 
empress of France. 

Here is the emperor's own official announcement of his 
intended marriage : — 

" I accede to the wish so often manifested by my people in 
announcing my marriage to you. The union which I am about 
to contract is not in harmony with old political traditions, and in 
this lies its advantage. France, by her successive revolutions, 
has been widely sundered from the rest of Europe. A wise 
Government should so rule as to bring her back within the 
circle of ancient monarchies. But this result will be more 
readily obtained by a frank and straightforward policy, by 
a loya] intercourse, than by royal alliances, which often 
create false security, and subordinate national to family inter- 
ests. Moreover, past examples have left superstitious beliefs 
in the popular mind. The people have not forgotten that for 
sixty years foreign princesses have mounted the steps of the 
throne only to see their race scattered and proscribed, either 
by war or revolution. One woman alone appears to have 
brought with her good fortune, and lives, more than the rest, 
in the memory of the people ; and this woman, the wife of 
General Bonaparte, was not of royal blood. We must admit 
this much, however. In 1810 the marriage of Napoleon I. 
with Marie Louise was a great event. It was a bond for 
the future, and a real gratification to the national pride. . . . 
But when, in the face of ancient Europe, one is carried by 
the force of a new principle to the level of the old dynasties, 
it is not by affecting an ancient descent and endeavoring at 
any price to enter the family of kings, that one compels recog- 
nition. It is rather by remembering one's origin; it is by 
preserving one's own character, and assuming frankly towards 
Europe the position of a parvemi, — a glorious title when one 
rises by the suffrages of a great people. Thus impelled, as I 
have been, to part from the precedents that have been hitherto 
followed, my marriage is only a private matter. It remained 
for me to choose my wife. She who has become the object 
of my choice is of lofty birth, French in heart and education 
and by the memory of the blood shed by her father in the 
cause of the Empire. She has, as a Spaniard, the advantage 
of not having a family in France to whom it would be neces- 
sary to give honors and dignities. Gifted with every quality 
of the heart, she will be the ornament of the throne, as in the 
hour of danger she would be one of its most courageous de- 
fenders. A pious Catholic, she will address one prayer with 



THE EMPEROR'S MARRIAGE. 171 

me to Heaven for the happiness of France. Kindly and 
good, she will show in the same position, I firmly believe, 
the virtues of the Empress Josephine." 

The State coaches of the First Empire were regilded 
for the occasion, the crown diamonds were drawn from 
the hiding-place where they had lain since Louis Phi- 
Hppe's time, and were reset for the lady who was to wear 
them, while her apartments at the Tuileries were rapidly 
prepared. 

The emperor was radiant. He had followed his incli- 
nation, and now that his choice was made, it seemed to 
receive miiversal approval. The London "Times" said: 
'' Mademoiselle de Montijo knows better the character of 
France than any princess who could have been fetched 
from a German principality. She combines by her birth 
the energy of the Scottish and Spanish races, and if the 
opinion we hold of her be correct, she is, as Napoleon 
says, made not only to adorn the throne, but to defend 
it in the hour of danger." 

The Municipal Council of Paris voted six hundred thou- 
sand francs to buy her a diamond necklace as a wedding 
present. Very gracefully she declined the necklace, but 
accepted the money, with which she endowed an Orphan 
Asylum. 

The wedding-day was Jan. 29, 1853. Crowds lined 
the streets as the bride and her cortege drove to the Tui- 
leries, where they were received by the Grand Chamberlain 
and other court dignitaries, who conducted the bride to the 
first salon. There she was received by Prince Napoleon 
and his sister, the Princess Mathilde, who introduced her 
into the salon, where the emperor, with his uncle. King 
Jerome, surrounded by a ghttering throng of cardinals, 
marshals, admirals, and great officers of State, stood ready 
to receive her. Thence, at nine o'clock, she was led by the 
emperor to the Salle des Mar^chaux and seated beside him 
on a raised throne. The marriage contract was then read, 
and signed by the bride and bridegroom and by all the 
princes and princesses present. 



172 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

The bride wore a marvellous dress of Alen^on point lace, 
clasped with a diamond and sapphire girdle made for the 
Empress Marie Louise, and she looked, said a beholder, 
" the imperial beauty of a poet's vision." The emperor 
was in a general's uniform. He wore the collar of the 
Legion of Honor which his uncle the Great Emperor used 
to wear. He wore also the collar of the Golden Fleece 
that had once belonged to the Emperor Charles V. 

The civil marriage being concluded, the imperial pair 
and the wedding guests passed into the theatre, where a 
catitata, composed by Auber for the occasion, was sung. 
The empress, robed in lace and glittering in jewels, seemed, 
says an eye-witness, to realize the picture presented of her- 
self in the composer's words : — 

" Espagne bien aimee, 
Oil le ciel est vermeil, 
C'est toi qui I'as formee 
D'un rayon de soleil.^i 

When the cantata had been sung, the Grand Master of the 
Ceremonies conducted the bride, as yet only half married, 
back to the Elysee. 

The next morning all Paris was astir to see the wedding 
procession pass to the cathedral of Notre Dame. Early 
in the morning the emperor had repaired to the Elysee, 
where, in the chapel, he and the empress had heard mass, 
and after making their confession, had partaken of the Holy 
Communion. There were two hundred thousand sight- 
seers in Paris that day, in addition to the usual population. 

The empress wore upon her golden hair the crown 
that the First Napoleon had placed upon the head of Marie 
Louise. The body of the church was filled with men, — 
ambassadors, military anti naval officers, and high officials. 
Their wives were in the galleries. As the great doors of 

1 Ah, beautiful Spain, 

With thy skies ever bright, 
Thou hast formed her for us 
From a ray of sunlight. 



THE EMPEROR'S MARRIAGE. 173 

the cathedral were opened to admit the bridal procession, a 
broad path of light gleamed from the door up to the altar, 
adding additional brilliancy to the glittering scene. Up the 
long aisle the emperor led his bride, flashing with the light 
of jewels, among them the unlucky regent diamond, which 
glittered on her bosom. After the Spanish fashion, she 
crossed her brow, her lips, her heart, her thumb, as she 
knelt for the nuptial benediction. The ceremony over, the 
archbishop conducted the married pair to the porch of 
the cathedral, and they drove along the Quai to the 
Tuileries. 

The first favor the empress asked of her husband was 
the pardon of more than four thousand unfortunate persons 
still exiled or imprisoned for their share in the risings that 
succeeded the coup d'etat. 

When Washington Irving heard of the marriage, he wrote : 
" Louis Napoleon and Eugenie de Montijo, — Emperor and 
Empress of France ! He whom I received as an exile at 
my cottage on the Hudson, she whom at Granada I have 
dandled on my knee ! The last I saw of Eugenie de Mon- 
tijo, she and her gay circle had swept away a charming 
young girl, beautiful and accomplished, my dear young 
friend, into their career of fashionable dissipation. Now 
Eugenie is on a throne, and the other a voluntary recluse 
in a convent of one of the most rigorous Orders." This 
convent is near Biarritz, where the nuns take vows of silence 
like the monks of La Trappe.^ The empress when at 
Biarritz never failed to visit her former friend, who was 
permitted to converse with her. 

The beautiful woman thus raised to the imperial throne ^ 
was a mixed character, — not so perfect as some have 
represented her, but entirely to be acquitted of those 
grave faults that envy or disappointed expectations have 
attributed to her. Her character united kind-heartedness 
with inconsideration, imprudence with austerity, ardent 
feeling with great practical common-sense. Probably the 

^ Saturday Review, 1885. 
2 Pierre de Lano. 



174 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

emperor understood her very little at the time of his mar- 
riage, and that she long remained to him an enigma may 
have been one of her charms. With the impetuosity of 
her disposition and the intrepidity that had characterized 
her girlhood, she found it hard to submit to the restraints 
of her position, and the emperor had occasion frequently 
to remonstrate with her on her indifference to etiquette 
and public opinion. It was not until after her visit to 
Windsor in 1855 that she could be induced to establish 
court rules at the Tuileries, and to prescribe for herself 
and others, in public, a strict system of etiquette. But 
in her private hours, among her early friends, in the circle 
of ladies admitted to her intimacy, the empress was less 
discreet. Her impressions were apt to run into extremes ; 
she indulged in whims like other pretty women ; yet she 
was never carried by her romantic feelings or her enthu- 
siasm beyond her power of self-control. Though careless 
of etiquette in private life, whenever a great occasion came, 
she could act with imperial dignity. 

Although she often experienced ingratitude, she was 
always generous. She was as ready to solicit favors and 
pardons as was the Empress Josephine. Sometimes she 
was even sorely embarrassed to find arguments in favor 
of hex proteges. ^^ Ah, 7non Dieii I'' she cried once, when 
pleading for the pardon of a workman, " how could he 
be guilty ? He has a wife and five children to support ; 
he could have had no time for conspiracy ! " 

As a wife she was devoted, not only to the public inter- 
ests of her husband, but to his personal welfare. She was 
constantly anxious lest he should suffer from overwork ; 
and her little select evening parties, which some people 
found fault with, were instituted by her with the chief 
object of amusing him. 

Ben Jonson makes it a reproach against a lady of the 
sixteenth century that she would not ^'suffer herself to be 
admired." No such reproach could be addressed to the 
Empress Eugenie. Few women conscious of their power to 
charm will fail to exercise it. In the case of an empress, 



THE EMPEROR'S MARRIAGE. 175 

— young, lively, of an independent and adventurous spirit, 
and very beautiful, — all who approached her thought better 
of themselves from her apparent appreciation of their claims 
to consideration ; and, indeed, in her position was it not 
the duty of the successor of Josephine to be gracious and 
charming to everybody? 

Unfortunately the ladies who most enjoyed the intimacy 
of the Empress Eugenie were foreigners. She seems to 
have felt a certain distrust of Frenchwomen ; and consider- 
ing the ingratitude she often met with from those she 
served, it is hardly surprising that she preferred the 
intimacy of women who could not look to her for 
favors. 

One of the ladies most intimate with the empress was 
the wife of Prince Richard Metternich, the Austrian ambas- 
sador. This lady seems to have had personal and political 
ends in view, and to have succeeded in inducing the em- 
press to adopt and further them. That she was a dan- 
gerous and false friend may be judged from a speech she 
made when remonstrated with for countenancing and en- 
couraging a project, favored by the empress, of making a 
promenade in the forest of Fontainebleau with her court- 
ladies in skirts which, like those in the old Scotch bal- 
lad, should be "kilted up to the knee." "You would not 
have advised )^our own empress," it was said to her, "to 
appear in such a garb." " Of course not," replied the 
ambassadress ; " but my empress is of royal birth, — a 
real empress ; while yours, ma chere, was Mademoiselle 
de Montijo ! " 

Brought up in private hfe, not early trained to the self-ab- 
negation demanded of princesses, the Empress Eugenie did 
not bring into her new sphere all the aplomb and serious- 
ness about little things which are early inculcated on ladies 
brought up to the profession of royalty. The career for 
which she had formed herself was that of a very charming 
woman ; and one secret of her fascination was the sincerity 
of the interest she took in those around her. She loved 
to study character, to see into men's souls. She loved to 



176 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

be adored, while irresponsively she received men's homage. 
She especially liked the society of famous men, and when 
she was to meet them, she took pains to inform herself 
on the subjects about which they were most likely to 
converse. 

That Queen Victoria loves her as a sister and a friend, is 
a testimony to her dignity and goodness ; and we have her 
husband's own opinion of her, published on her fete-day, 
Dec. 15, 1868, after nearly sixteen years of marriage. The 
emperor had under his control a monthly magazine called 
*' Le Dix Decembre," in which he often inserted articles 
from his own pen. The manuscript of this, in his own hand- 
writing, was found in 1870 in the sack of the Tuileries. He 
omits all mention of his wife's Scotch ancestry, neither does 
he allude to her school-days in England. He speaks of 
her as a member of one of the most distinguished families 
in Spain, extols her father's attachment to the house of 
Bonaparte, and tells how she and her sister were placed at 
the Sacre Coeur, near Paris, declaring that " she acquired, 
we may say, the French before the Spanish language." 
He goes on to speak of her, not as the leader of a giddy 
circle of fashion in Madrid, as Washington Irving describes 
her, but as the thoughtful, studious young girl, with a pre- 
cocious taste for social problems and for the society of men 
of letters ; and he adds that after her marriage her simple, 
natural tastes did not disappear. " After her visit to the 
cholera patients at Amiens," he says, "nothing seemed to 
surprise her more than the applause that everywhere cele- 
brated her courage. She seemed at last distressed by it. . . . 
At Compiegne," he also tells us, "nothing can be more 
attractive than five o'clock tea a V imperatrice ; though," 
he adds slyly, " sometimes she is a little too fond of 
argument." 

Assuredly she filled a difficult place, and filled it well ; 
but the court of the Second Empire was all spangles and 
tinsel. It was composed of men and women all more or 
less adventurers. It was the court of the nouveaux riches 
and of a mushroom aristocracy. There were prizes to be 



THE EMPEROR'S MARRIAGE. lyy 

won and pleasures to be enjoyed, and it was " like as it was 
in the days of Noe, until the flood came, and swept them 
all away." 

In the midst of the crowd that composed thi's court the 
emperor and the empress shine out as the best. Both 
wanted to do their duty, as they understood it, to France. 
Whether it was the emperor's fault or his misfortune, is 
still undecided ; but, with one or two exceptions, he was 
able to attach to himself only keen-witted adventurers and 
mediocre men. Among the women, not one who was really 
superior rose above the crowd. The empress led a giddy 
circle of married women, as in her youth, according to 
Washington Irving, she had led a giddy circle of young 
girls. 

The two most able men among the emperor's advisers 
were his own kinsmen, — Count Walewski, who died in 1868, 
and the Due de Morny, a man calm, polished, socially 
amiable, and so clever that Guizot once said to him : " My 
dear Morny, you are the only man who could overturn the 
Empire ; but you will never be foolish enough to do it." 
By his death, in 1865, Louis Napoleon was bereft of his 
ablest adviser. 

Persigny, or Fialin, had been the close personal friend 
of the emperor in his exile, and took a prominent part in 
the abortive expedition to Boulogne. In his youth he had 
led a disreputable life, and was not a man of great intellect, 
but he was presumed to be devoted to his old comrade. 
His friendship, however, had not always a happy effect upon 
the fortunes of his master. In 1872 he made a miserable 
end of his adventurous life, after having turned against the 
emperor in his adversity. 

Fleury was another personal friend of Louis Napoleon, 
and was probably his best. The prince president had 
distinguished him when he was only a subaltern in the 
army. He had enhsted in the ranks, and had done good 
service in Algeria. In the emperor's last days of failing 
health he loved to keep Fleury beside him ; but the em- 
press was jealous of her husband's friend, and used her 



178 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, 

influence to have him honorably exiled to St. Petersburg as 
French ambassador. This post he occupied when the 
Franco-Prussian war broke out, so that he could be of little 
help to his master. 

Saint-Arnaud had been made a marshal and minister of 
war, in spite of having been twice turned out of the French 
army. 

M. Rouher had charge of the emperor's financial con- 
cerns, and Fould was a man who understood bureau-work, 
and how to manipulate government machinery. 

Whoever might be the emperor's ministers, this little 
clique of his personal adherents — De Morny, Persigny, 
Saint-Arnaud, Fleury, Rouher, and Fould — were always 
around their master, giving him their advice and sharing 
(so far as he allowed any one to share) his intimate 
councils. 

The members of the Bonaparte family were an immense 
expense to the emperor, and gave him no little trouble. 
They were not the least thirsty among those who thronged 
around the fountain of wealth and honor; and their im- 
portunate demands upon the emperor's bounty led to a 
perpetual and reckless waste of money. The empress fre- 
quently remonstrated with her husband in regard to his 
lavish largesses and too generous expenditure. Contrary 
to what has been generally supposed, she was herself or- 
derly and methodical in her expenditures and accounts, 
always carefully examining her bills, and though by the 
emperor's express desire she always expended the large 
amount annually allowed her, she never exceeded that sum. 

Unhappily, the revived imperialism of Louis Napoleon 
was not, like Legitimacy, a cause, but to most persons who 
supported it, it was a speculation. Adherents had there- 
fore to be attracted to it by hopes of gain, and all services 
had to be handsomely rewarded. 

The emperor's policy in the early years of his reign may 
be said to have been twofold. He wanted to make France 
increase in material prosperity, and he wished to have 
money freely spent within her borders. He set on foot 



THE EMPEROR'S MARRIAGE. lyg 

all kinds of improvements in Paris, and all kinds of useful 
enterprises in the provinces. Work was plenty; money 
flowed freely; the empire was everywhere popular. But 
the government of France was the government of one 
man; and if anything happened to that one man, where 
would be the government? There seemed no need to 
ask that question while France was prosperous and Paris 
gay. France under the Second Empire was quieter than 
she had been for any eighteen years since the Great Revo- 
lution ; and for that she was grateful to Napoleon III. 

His foreign policy was still more successful. "The 
Empire is peace," he had early proclaimed to be his 
motto. At first the idea of a Napoleon on the throne 
of France had greatly terrified the nations ; but by degrees 
it seemed as if he really meant to be the Napoleon of 
Peace, as his uncle had been the Napoleon of War. He 
took every opportunity of reiterating his desire to be on 
good terms with his neighbors. With respect to England, 
those who knew him best asserted earnestly that he had 
always been in sympathy with the country that had shel- 
tered him in exile. Count Walewski, whom he sent over 
as ambassador to London, was very popular there. He 
attended the funeral of the Duke of Wellington in his 
official capacity, and in return for this courtesy England 
restored to the French emperor his uncle's will, which had 
been laid up in Doctor's Commons with other wills of per- 
sons who had died on English soil. Russia was haughty 
to the new emperor ; but the other courts of Europe ac- 
cepted him, and most of them did so with considerable 
alacrity ; for was he not holding down Socialism and Inter- 
nationalism, which they dreaded far more than Napole- 
onism, and by which they were menaced in their own 
lands ? 

The great perplexity of the new emperor was his rela- 
tion to Italy. He and his brother had taken the oaths 
of a Carbonaro in that country, in 183 1. It is not to 
this day certain that his brother did not die by a Car- 
bonaro's knife, rather than by the measles. Be that 



l8o FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

as it may, Louis Napoleon knew that if he failed to keep 
his promises as to the hberation of Italy, assassination 
awaited him. 

How he endeavored to reconcile his engagements as a 
Carbonaro with his poHcy as the French emperor be- 
longs less to the historical gossip of France than to that 
of Italy. So too the history of the Crimean War seems 
to belong par excellence to that of Russia. It was under- 
taken by England and France as allies, joined afterwards by 
a Sardinian army under General La Marmora, by the Turk- 
ish troops under Omar Pasha, and by an Egyptian con- 
tingent ; but as we are now engaged on the personal his- 
tory of the emperor and empress, I will rather here tell 
how Napoleon III., having formed a camp of one hundred 
thousand soldiers at Boulogne, on the very ground where 
his uncle had assembled his great army for the invasion 
of England, decided to ascertain, through his ambassador 
in London, if it would be agreeable to Prince Albert to 
visit 'that camp and see the manoeuvres of his army. Find- 
ing that the invitation would be acceptable to the prince, 
he addressed him the following letter : — 

July 3, 1854. 

MoN Frere, — Your Royal Highness knows that putting 
in practice your own idea, and wishing to carry out to the end 
the struggle with Russia that we have begun together, I have 
decided to form an army between Boulogne and St. Omer. 
I need not tell your Highness how pleased I should be to see 
you, and how happy I should be to show you my soldiers. 
I am convinced, moreover, that personal ties will strengthen 
the union so happily established between two great nations. 
I beg you to present my respectful homage to the queen, and 
to receive this expression of the esteem and sincere affection 
I have conceived for you. 

With this, mon frere, I pray God to have you in his holy 
keeping. 

Napoleon. 

The prince accepted the invitation, addressing the em- 
peror as '' Sire et mon frere." The queen entirely approved 
the visit, and Baron Stockmar predicted much advantage 



THE EMPEROR'S MARRIAGE. l8l 

from it, " inasmuch," he said, " as the good or evil destiny 
of the present time will directly and chiefly depend upon 
a rational, honorable, and resolute alliance between Eng- 
land and France." 

Prince Albert met the emperor at Boulogne, Sept. 4, 
1854. The Duke of Newcastle, who was in attendance 
on Prince Albert, wrote to a friend that tears stood in the 
emperor's eyes when he received his guest as he stepped 
upon French soil; and the prince wrote that evening to 
the queen : — 

"The emperor has been very nervous, if we are to believe 
those who stood near him and who know him well. He was 
kindly and courteous, and does not look so old nor so pale as 
his portraits make him, and is much gayer than he is gene- 
rally represented. The visit cannot fail to be a source of great 
gratification to him. ... I have had two long talks with him, 
in which he spoke very sensibly about the war and the ques- 
tions du jour. People here are sanguine about the results 
of the expedition to the Crimea, and very sensitive about the 
behavior of Admiral Sir Charles Napier." 

The prince adds in his letter, the same evening : — 

"The emperor thaws more and more. This evening after 
dinner I withdrew with him to his sitting-room for half an hour 
before rejoining his guests, in order that he might smoke his 
cigarette, — in which occupation, to his amazement, I could 
not keep him company. He told me that one of the deepest 
impressions ever made on him was, when having gone from 
France to Rio Janeiro and thence to the United States, and 
being recalled to Europe by the rumor of his mother's serious 
illness, he arrived in London directly after King William's 
death, and saw you going to open parliament for the first 
time." 

Subsequently the prince tells the queen, — 

" We discussed all topics of home and foreign policy, mate- 
rial and personal, with the greatest frankness, and I can say 
but good of what I heard. ... He was brought up in the Ger- 
man fashion in Germany, — a training which has developed 
a German turn of mind. As to all modern political history, so 
far as this is not Napoleonic, he is without information; so 
that he wants many of the materials for accurate judgment." 



1 82 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Dickens, who was at Boulogne on this occasion, thus 
tells of Prince Albert's arrival : — 

" The town looks like one immense flag, it is so decked out 
with streamers ; and as the royal yacht approached yesterday, 
the whole range of the cliff-tops was lined with troops, and the 
artillerymen, matches in hand, stood ready to fire the great 
guns the moment she made the harbor, the sailors standing 
up in the prow of the yacht, the prince, in a blazing uniform, 
left alone on the deck for everybody to see, — a stupendous 
silence, and then such an infernal blazing and banging as 
never was heard. It was almost as fine a sight as one could 
see, under a deep blue sky." 

While the guest of the emperor, Prince Albert expressed 
to him the queen's hope that they should see him in Eng- 
land, and that she should make the acquaintance of the 
empress. 

The prince, an excellent judge of character, in a subse- 
quent memorandum concerning his impressions, says, — 

" The emperor appeared quiet and indolent from constitu- 
tion, not easily excited, but gay and humorous when at his 
ease. His French is not without a little German accent, 
and his pronunciation of German is better than of English. 
. . . He recited a poem by Schiller on the advantages to man 
of peace and war, which seemed to have made a deep impres- 
sion upon him, and appeared to me to be not without signifi- 
cance with reference to his own life. His court and household 
are strictly kept and in good order, more English than French. 
The gentlemen composing his entourage are not distinguished 
by birth, manners, or education. He lives on a familiar foot- 
ing with them, although they seemed afraid of him. The tone 
was rather that of a garrison, with a good deal of smoking. 
... He is very chilly, complains of rheumatism, and goes 
early to bed, takes no pleasure in music, but is proud of his 
horsemanship." 

Speaking again of the emperor's lack of information 
as to the history of politics. Prince Albert says : — 

" But he is remarkably modest in acknowledging these de- 
fects, and in not pretending to know what he does not. All 
that relates to Napoleonic poHtics he has at his finger's ends. 
He also appears to have thought much and deeply on politics. 



THE EMPEROR'S MARRIAGE. 1 83 

yet more like an amateur politician, mixing many very sound 
and very crude notions together. He admires English institu- 
tions, and regrets the absence of an aristocracy in France, but 
might not be willing to allow such an aristocracy to control his 
own power, whilst he might wish to have the advantage of its 
control over the pure democracy." 

The emperor closely questioned the prince about the 
working of the English government and the queen's rela- 
tions to her ministers. Prince Albert writes, — 

" He said that he did not allow his ministers to meet or to dis- 
cuss matters together ; that they transacted their business solely 
with him. He seemed astonished when I told him that every 
despatch went through the queen's hands and was read by her, as 
he only received extracts made from them, and indeed appeared 
to have little time or inclination generally to read. When I ob- 
served to him that the queen would not be content without seeing 
the whole of the diplomatic correspondence, he repHed that he 
found a full compensation in having persons in his own employ 
and confidence at the different posts of importance, who reported 
solely to him. I could not but express my sense of the danger 
of such an arrangement, to which no statesman, in England at 
least, would submit." 

I have quoted this memorandum of Prince Albert's, be- 
cause it points out the perils which led to the downfall of 
the Empire, — the emperor's bad entourage ; his personal 
government, assisted only by private confidential relations 
with irresponsible persons ; his mixture of crude and sen- 
sible ideas of government ; his indolence ; and his tendency 
to let things slide out of his own hands. 

" Upon the whole," concluded the prince, "my impression is 
that neither in home nor foreign politics would the emperor 
naturally take any violent step, but that he appears in distress 
for means of governing, and is obliged to look about him from 
day to day. Having deprived the people of any active partici- 
pation in the government, and reduced them to the mere position 
of spectators, they grow impatient, like a crowd at a display of 
fireworks, whenever there is any cessation in the display. Still, 
he appears the only man who has any hold on France, relying 
on the name of Napoleon. He said to the Duke of Newcastle: 



1 84 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

' Former Governments have tried to reign by the support of one 
miUion of the educated classes ; I claim to lay hold of the other 
twenty-nine.' He is decidedly benevolent, and anxious for the 
good of the people, but has, like all rulers before him, a bad 
opinion of their political capacity." 

Strange to say, in the midst of war the Universal Expo- 
sition of 1855 took place in Paris. The winter was horribly 
severe, and the armies in the Crimea suffered terribly. The 
emperor was extremely desirous to go himself to the seat 
of war, but was urged by every one about him to remain at 
home. All kinds of good reasons were put forward for this 
advice, but probably not the one subsequently advanced by 
one of his generals after the campaign of Italy in 1859. 
" It used to be said that the presence of the First Napo- 
leon with his army was worth a reinforcement of forty 
thousand men. The army now feels that the presence of 
the Third Napoleon equals the loss of about the same 
number." 

We have seen that Queen Victoria had expressed a wish 
to welcome the emperor and empress at Windsor Castle. 
It was on April 16, 1855, that the imperial pair reached 
England, and were received by Prince Albert on board their 
yacht. They met with a hearty national greeting on their 
way to London. In London itself crowds lined the streets. 
" It was," says an eye-witness, " one bewildering triumph, 
in which it was estimated that a million of people took 
part." The ^' Times " reporter noticed that as the emperor 
passed his old residence in King Street, St. James's, he 
pointed it out to the empress as the place where he was liv- 
ing when the events of 1848 summoned him to Paris. 

" Only seven years before," observes his biographer, Mr. 
Jerrold, " he was wont to stroll unnoticed, with his faithful 
dog at his heels, from this house to the news-vendor's stall 
by the Burlington Arcade, to get the latest news from revo- 
lutionary France ; now he was the guest of the English 
people, on his way through cheering crowds to Windsor 
Castle, where the queen was waiting in the vestibule to 
receive him." The same rooms were prepared for him 



THE EMPEROR'S MARRIAGE. 1 85 

that had been given to Louis Philippe and to the Emperor 
Nicholas. Queen Victoria tells us in her diary, — 

" I cannot say what indescribable emotions filled me, — how 
much all seemed like a wonderful dream. ... I advanced 
and embraced the Emperor, . . . and then the very gentle, 
graceful, and evidently nervous empress. We presented the 
princes and our children (Vicky, with very alarmed eyes, making 
very low courtesies). The emperor embraced Bertie, and then 
he went upstairs, Albert leading the empress, who, in the most 
engaging manner, refused to go first, but at length, with graceful 
reluctance, did so, the emperor leading me and expressing his 
great gratification in being here and seeing me, and admiring 
Windsor." 

At dinner, on the day of his arrival, the new ruler of 
France seems to have charmed the queen. " He is," she 
records in her journal, " so very quiet. His voice is low 
and soft. Et il ne fait pas des plwasesy 

When the war was talked about, the emperor spoke of 
his wish to go out to the Crimea, and the queen noticed 
that the empress was as eager as himself that he should go. 
" She sees no greater danger for him //^(?;r," she adds, 
" than in Paris. She said she was seldom alarmed for him 
except when he went out quite alone of a morning. . . . 
She is full of courage and spirit, and yet so gentle, with 
such innocence and enjouement, that the ensemble is most 
charming. With all her great liveliness she has the prettiest 
and most modest manner." 

The queen little guessed what commotion and excitement 
had gone on before dinner in the private apartments of the 
emperor and empress, when it was discovered that the case 
containing all the beautiful toilet prepared for the occa- 
sion had not arrived. The emperor suggested to his wife 
to retire to rest on the plea of fatigue after the journey, but 
she decided to borrow a blue-silk dress from one of her 
ladies-in-waiting, in which, with only flowers in her hair, 
she increased the queen's impression of her simplicity and 
modesty. 

During the visit the emperor asked the queen where 



1 86 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Louis Philippe's widow, Queen Marie Amelie, was living. 
She had been at Windsor Castle only a few days before, and 
the queen had looked sorrowfully after her as she drove 
away, with shabby post-horses, to her residence near Rich- 
mond. The emperor begged her Majesty to express to 
Louis Philippe's widow his hope that she would not hesitate 
to pass through France on any journey she might make to 
Spain. 

There was a review of the household troops, commanded 
by Lord Cardigan, who had led the charge of the Light 
Brigade at Balaclava, and who rode the same charger. The 
emperor rode a fiery, beautiful chestnut, and his horseman- 
ship was much admired. That evening there was a State 
ball at Windsor Castle, and the queen danced a quadrille 
with the emperor. The queen wrote that evening in her 
journal : " How strange to think that I — the granddaughter 
of George IIL — should dance with the Emperor Napoleon, 
nephew of England's greatest enemy, now my nearest and 
most intimate ally, in the Waterloo Room, and that ally 
living in this country only six years ago in exile, poor and 
unthought of ! " 

She adds, speaking of the empress : '' Her manner is the 
most perfect thing I have ever seen, so gentle and graceful 
and kind, and the courtesy is charming, — so modest and 
retiring withal." 

The next day came a council attended by the emperor. 
Prince Albert, ministers, and diplomatists, which lasted so 
very long that the queen herself knocked at the door and 
reminded them that at four o'clock the emperor was to 
be invested with the Order of the Garter. 

After this ceremony was over, the emperor remarked to 
the queen that he had now sworn fidelity to her Majesty, 
and would carefully keep his oath. 

At dinner that day the talk fell on assassination. The 
emperor was shot at by a Carbonaro only a few days after 
his return from Windsor, and four years later by Orsini. 

Before leaving England the emperor attended a banquet 
given to him by the Lord Mayor. At Windsor he read his 



THE EMPEROR'S MARRIAGE, 187 

speech (in English) to the queen and prince, who pro- 
nounced it a very good one. 

Next day the royalties went to see the Crystal Palace, at 
Sydenham. There they were surrounded by sight-seeing 
throngs, and in such a crowd there was every chance for a 
pistol-shot from some French or Italian refugee, " I own I 
felt anxious," writes the queen ; " I felt as I walked, leaning 
on the emperor's arm, that I was possibly a protection to 
him." 

Afterwards she writes, — 

" On all, this visit has left a permanent satisfactory impression. 
It went off so well, — not a c outre- te7np s j fine weather, everything 
smiling, the nation enthusiastic and happy in the alliance of two 
great countries whose enmity would be fatal. ... I am glad to 
have known this extraordinary man, whom it is certainly not 
possible not to like when you live with him, and not, even to a 
considerable extent, to admire. ... I believe him capable of 
kindness, affection, friendship, gratitude. I feel confidence in 
him as regards the future. I think he is frank, means well to 
us, and, as Stockmar says, that we have insured his sincerity 
and good faith to us for the rest of his life." 

Nearly a year after this visit, when the emperor and 
empress had been married about three years, the Prince 
Imperial was born, March 16, 1856. A few hours after 
his birth he was christened Napoleon Eugene Louis Jean 
Joseph. Pope Pius IX. was his godfather, the Queen of 
Sweden his godmother. For many hours the empress, 
like her imperial predecessor Marie Louise, was danger- 
ously ill. 

The Crimean War had by that time virtually come to a 
triumphant end. The emperor had at last an heir; all 
things appeared to smile upon him. A general amnesty 
was issued to all political offenders. The emperor became 
godfather and the empress godmother to all legitimate 
children born in France upon their son's birthday, and fi- 
nally the little prince had a public baptism at Notre Dame, 
followed by a ball of extraordinary magnificence, given by 
the city of Paris to the mother of the heir-apparent, at 
the H6tel-de-Ville. 



1 88 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

The chief trouble that menaced the imperial throne at 
this period was the extraordinary lavishness which the em- 
peror's entourage of speculative adventurers encouraged 
him to incur in all directions ; the recklessness of specula- 
tion ; the general mania for gain that went on around him. 
There had also been terrible inundations in France, and 
a bad harvest. Many things also that disgusted and dis- 
quieted the emperor were going on among the persons 
who surrounded him, — persons in whom he had placed 
confidence ; and it was one of his good qualities that he 
was always slow to believe evil. Still, these things were 
forced on his attention, and greatly disturbed him. 

His httle son was from the first his idol. Here is a letter 
he wrote to Prince Albert, acknowledging Queen Victoria's 
congratulations : — 

" I have been greatly touched to learn that all your family 
have shared my joy, and all my hope is that my son may re- 
semble dear little Prince Arthur, and that he may have the rare 
qualities of your children. The sympathy shown on the late 
occasion by the English people is another bond between the two 
countries, and I hope my son will inherit my feelings of true 
friendship for the royal family of England, and of affectionate 
esteem for the great English nation." 

A few months later, the future Emperor Frederick, then 
recently engaged to the Princess Royal of England, visited 
Paris. He was attended by Major Baron von Moltke, who 
described the emperor, empress, and their court in letters 
to his friends. " The empress," he says, ^' is of astonishing 
beauty, with a slight, elegant figure, and dressing with much 
taste and richness, but without ostentation. She is very 
talkative and lively, — much more so than is usual with per- 
sons occupying so high a position. The emperor impressed 
me by a sort of immobility of features, and the almost ex- 
tinguished look of his eyes." 

This look, by the way, was cultivated by the emperor. 
When his early playfellow, Madame Cornu, saw him after 
twelve years' separation, her first exclamation was : " Why ! 
what have you done to your eyes? " 



THE EMPEROR'S MARRIAGE. 1 89 

" The prominent characteristic of the emperor's face," con- 
tinues Von Moltke, " is a friendly, good-natured smile which 
has nothing Napoleonic about it. He mostly sits quietly with 
his head on one side, and events have shown that this tranquil- 
lity, which is very imposing to the restless French nation, is not 
apathy, but a sign of a superior mind and a strong will. He is 
an emperor, and not a king. . . . Affairs in France are not in 
a normal condition, but it would be difficult to say how, under 
present circumstances, they could be improved. . . . Napoleon 
III. has nothing of the sombre sternness of his uncle, neither his 
imperial demeanor nor his deliberate attitude. He is a quite 
simple and somewhat small man, whose always tranquil coun- 
tenance gives a strong impression of amiability. He never gets 
angry, say the people round him. He is always polite. . . .He 
suffers from a want of men of ability to uphold him. He cannot 
make use of men of independent character, who insist on having 
their own notions, as the direction of affairs of State must be 
concentrated in his hands. Greater liberty ought to be con- 
ceded in a regulated state of society, but in the present state of 
France there must be a strong and single direction, which is, 
besides, best adapted to the French character. Freedom of the 
Press is for the present as impossible here as it would be at the 
headquarters of an army in the field if the Press wished to dis- 
cuss the measures taken by the general in command. Napoleon 
has shown wisdom, firmness, self-confidence, but also modera- 
tion and clemency; and though simple in his dress, he does not 
forget that the French people like to see their sovereigns sur- 
rounded by a brilliant court." 

Of the imperial baby in his nurse's arms, on whom the 
father looked with a face radiant with pride and joy, Von 
Moltke remarks : " Truly, he seems a strapping fellow." 

The little prince grew up a very promising lad. He was 
his father's idol. Louis Napoleon never could be brought 
to give him any sterner reproof than " Louis, don't be fool-^ 
ish, — ne fais pas des betisesT Discipline was left to his 
mother, and it was popularly thought that she was much 
less wrapped up in the child than his father was. His es- 
pecial talent was for drawing and sculpture. Some of his 
sketches, of which fac-similes are given in Jerrold's "■ Life of 
Napoleon HI., " are very spirited, and when he could get a 



190 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

lump of wet clay to play with, he made busts of the persons 
round him which were excellent likenesses. 

The emperor's rooms at the Tuileries were rather low 
and dark, but he selected them because they communicated 
with those of the empress in the Pavilion de Flore, by a 
narrow winding staircase. Often in the day would she 
come down to him, or he ascend to her. 

His study was filled with Napoleonic relics, and littered 
with political and historical papers. He kept a large room 
with models of new inventions, which were a great delight 
to him and to his son. He was fond of wood-turning, and 
Thelin and he would often make pretty rustic chairs for the 
park at Saint-Cloud. 

For some years before his overthrow he was growing very 
feeble, and always carried a cane surmounted with a gold 
eagle. Commonly too some chosen friend, generally Fleury, 
gave him his arm, but he always walked in silence. In the 
afternoon he would drive out, and sometimes horrify the 
police by getting out of his carriage and walking alone in 
distant quarters of the city. 

On one occasion he had a difference of opinion with one 
of his friends, who assured him that if he insisted on plant- 
ing an open space in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine with 
flowers, and protected it by no railing, the flowers would 
very speedily be destroyed. His pleasure and exultation 
were very great when he found he had been right, and that 
not a flower had been plucked or broken. 

The emperor was generally gay and ready to converse 
at table, but he made it a rule never to criticise or dis- 
cuss living persons himself, or allow others to do so in his 
hearing. 

There was much decorum at court so far as his influence 
extended in the imperial circle, but there were plenty of 
scandals outside of it ; and as to money matters, even Per- 
signy and Fleury — one the friend of the emperor for five- 
and-twenty years, and the other devotedly attached to him 
— could not restrain themselves from cheating him and 
tricking him whenever they could. 




EMPEROR MAXIMILIAN'. 



CHAPTER X. 

MAXIMILIAN AND MEXICO.^ 

MAXIMILIAN, Archduke of Austria, was born the 
same week that his cousin, the unfortunate son of 
Napoleon and Marie Louise, had died. He grew to man- 
hood handsome, welL educated, accompUshed, and enter- 
prising. He had the great gift of always making himself 
personally beloved. The navy was his profession, but his 
great desire was to be made viceroy of the (then) Austrian 
provinces of Italy. He felt sure that he could conciliate 
the Italians, and a great Italian statesman is reported to 
have said that it was well for Italian unity that his wish was 
never granted. His ideas were all liberal, and opposed to 
those of Metternich. His family mistrusted his political 
opinions, but the Italians, when brought into personal con- 
tact with him, soon learned to love him. They saw a great 
deal of him, for Trieste and Venice were at that period the 
naval stations of the Austrian Empire. He was, therefore, 
often in those places, and finally took up his residence in 
an earthly paradise upon the Adriatic, created by himself 
and called by him Miramar. 

In June, 1857, when the Indian Mutiny was at its height, 
though tidings of it had not yet reached the western 
world, the Archduke Maximilian, whom the English 
royal family had never met, arrived at Windsor, and was 
hailed there as one who was soon to become a relative, for 

1 Much of the material of this chapter is taken from Victor Tissot's 
book of travels in Austria ; the chapter on Maximilian as archduke 
and emperor I translated from advance-sheets, and it was published 
in the " Living Age " under the title " From Miramar to Queretaro." 
— E. W. L. 



192 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

he was engaged to King Leopold's only daughter, the 
Princess Charlotte of Belgium. • 

The queen and her husband were charmed with Maxi- 
milian. " He is gL young prince," writes Prince Albert, 
" of whom we hear nothing but good, and Charlotte's alli- 
ance with him will be one of the heart. May Heaven's 
blessing," he adds, '' be upon a connection so happily 
begun, and in it may they both find their life's truest 
happiness ! " 

The queen also wrote to her uncle Leopold, — 

"The archduke is charming, — so clever, natural, kind, and 
amiable ; so English in his feelings and likings. With the ex- 
ception of the mouth and chin, he is good looking, but I think 
one does not the least care for that, he is so very kind, clever, 
and pleasant. I wish you really joy, dearest uncle, at having 
got such a husband for dear Charlotte. I am sure he will make 
her happy, and do a great deal for Italy." 

Prince Albert crossed over to Belgium for the wedding, 
and wrote to his wife : " Charlotte's whole being seems 
to have been warmed and unfolded by the love that is 
kindled in her heart. I have never seen so rapid a develop- 
ment in the space of one year. She appears to be happy 
and devoted to her husband with her whole soul, and eager 
to make herself worthy of her present position." 

At the time of her marriage the princess had just entered 
her seventeenth year. The wedding-day was made a little 
family fete at Windsor, in spite of Prince Albert's absence. 
" The younger children," the queen writes to her husband, 
'' are to have a half-holiday. AHce is to dine with us for 
the first time, in the evening. We shall drink the arch- 
duke's and the archduchess's healths, and I have ordered 
wine for our servants, and grog for our sailors, to do the 
same." 

Maximilian had been round the world in his frigate, the 
" Novara ; " he had travelled into Greece and Asia Minor, 
he had visited Spain, Portugal, and Sicily ; he had been to 
Egypt and the Holy Land. He loved the ocean hke a true 



MAXIMILIAN AND MEXICO. 1 93 

sailor, and in 1856 he had taken up his residence at Trieste, 
to be near its shores. He would frequendy go out alone in 
a hght boat, even in rough weather, a dash of danger lending 
excitement to a struggle with the wind and waves. 

One day in a storm his light craft had been borne like a 
feather round Cape Gignano. In a moment it lay at rest 
under the lee of the land. Maximilian landed, and found 
the spot so charming and the sea-view so superb that he 
resolved to build a little villa there for fishing. He bought 
the land at once, and began by setting out exotics, per- 
suaded that the soil of such a spot would be favorable to 
tropical vegetation. A year later he brought his young 
bride to this favored spot, and with a golden wand trans- 
formed his bachelor's fishing-hut into the palace of an 
emperor. 

At this period of his life, Maximilian (an author and a 
poet) was greatly interested in architecture. He drew the 
plans for an exquisite church (now one of the beauties of 
Vienna), and draughted with his own hand those for the 
grounds and castle of Miramar. The work was pushed on 
rapidly, yet in 1859, when Austria was forced to give up 
Lombardy, nothing at Miramar was complete except a 
fancy farm-house on one of the heights of the property. 
Maximilian, however, made his home there with his wife, 
and they found it so delightful that when at length the 
castle was ready for occupation, they lingered in the farm- 
house, which they loved as their first home. It was a large 
Swiss chalet, covered with vines and honeysuckle, surrounded 
by groves of camellias and pyrus japonicas. How delicious 
life must have been to the husband and wife in this soHtude, 
fragrant with flowers, vocal with the songs of birds, a glory 
of greenness round the house, the blue sky overhead, the 
glittering ocean at their feet, and holy love and loving 
kindness everywhere around them ! 

Maximilian's generosity rendered wealth indispensable to 
his complete happiness, for he loved to surround himself 
with artists, learned men, and men of letters. He paid 
them every kind of attention in his power, and did not 



194 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

omit those little gifts which are " the beads on memory's 
rosary." 

" One feels how happy life must have been to husband 
and wife in this new Paradise ! " cries M. Victor Tissot. 
" Yet it was Paradise Lost before long, for alas ! in this, as 
in the other Paradise, the Eve, the sweet young wife, was 
tempted by ambition. She took the apple, ate, and gave it 
to her husband.'' 

On April lo, 1864, the Mexican deputies commissioned 
to offer Maximilian the imperial crown, arrived at Miramar. 
" We come," said Don Gutierrez de Estrada, " to beseech 
you to ascend the throne of Mexico,, to which you have 
been called by the voice of a people weary of anarchy and 
civil war. We are assured you have the secret of conquer- 
ing the hearts of all men, and excel in the rare knowledge 
of the art of government." 

Maximilian replied that he was ready to accept the honor 
offered him by the Mexican people, and that his govern- 
ment would be both liberal and constitutional. " I shall 
prove, I trust," he said, "that liberty may be made com- 
patible with law. I shall respect your liberties, and uphold 
order at the same time." 

Don Gutierrez thanked the archduke in the name of 
the Mexican nation, and then the new emperor swore upon 
the Gospels to labor for the happiness and prosperity of his 
people, and to protect their independent nationality. Don 
Gutierrez was then embraced by Maximihan, who hung 
around his neck the cross of the new Order of Guadeloupe, 
of which he was the first member. 

But this acceptance of the imperial crown of Mexico was 
by no means a sudden thought with Maximilian. For eight 
months he had been debating the matter in his own heart, 
urged to acceptance of the crown by his wife, but dissuaded 
by his family. 

The history of the offer, connected as it is with one of 
Napoleon III.'s schemes for extending French influence, 
must be briefly told. 

Before the Civil War broke out in America, it had already 



MAXIMILIAN AND MEXICO. 195 

entered the head of the emperor that he would Uke to 
intermeddle in the affairs of Mexico. That unhappy- 
country, which the United States have been accused of 
doing their best to keep in a chronic state of weakness, 
turbulence, and revolution, had been left to recover itself 
after the Mexican War, which had shorn away its fairest 
provinces. 

In 1853, Santa Aiia, who had been president, dictator, 
exile, and conspirator by turns for thirty years, was recalled 
to Mexico, and a second time was made dictator. He 
assumed the title of Serene Highness, and claimed the right 
to nominate his successor. A popular revolution soon un- 
seated him. Juarez, an Indian half-breed, was at its head. 
The clerical party was outraged by the confiscation of the 
enormous possessions of the Church, and by the abolition of 
the right of mortmain {i. e., wills made upon death-beds 
were pronounced thenceforth invalid, so far as bequests to 
the Church were concerned). Mexico is a country with 
eighteen hundred miles of coast-line, but few harbors. It 
had in i860 no railroads, and hardly any highroads of any 
kind. Its provinces were semi-independent, its population 
widely scattered, a large part of it was Indian, a still larger 
portion consisted of half-breeds ; pure-blooded Spaniards 
were a small minority. The feeling that stood Mexico in lieu 
of patriotism was a keen hatred and jealousy of foreigners. 
Their very pride still keeps the Mexicans from believing 
that there can be anything better than what they possess. 
Perpetual revolutions had educated the people into habits 
of lawlessness ; and as to dishonesty, rank itself was no 
guarantee against petty larceny, while in the larger rascali- 
ties of peculation, bribe-taking, and political treachery, no 
nation had ever such opportunities for exercising its na- 
tional capacity, nor, apparently, did many Mexicans have 
conscientious scruples as to its display. 

Under these circumstances it is no wonder that foreign 
bondholders complained loudly to their Governments, or 
that in the general confusion all manner of wrongs to 
Englishmen, Frenchmen, Austrians, and Spaniards called 



196 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

loudly for redress. That cry reached the French emperor's 
ears. He proposed to England and Spain that as Mexico 
had at last got a government under Juarez, an interven- 
tionary force should appear off her coast, composed of 
English, French, and Spanish ships-of-war, and that Mexico 
should be summoned to redress their common wrongs. 

All this was harmless. The expedition was commanded 
by the Spanish General Prim ; but under the avowed object 
of demanding a redress of grievances, the Emperor Napo- 
leon concealed a more ambitious aim. The United States 
were at war ; all their resources were absorbed in civil 
strife. The most sagacious statesmen could not foresee 
that the end of that strife would be to make the country 
more great, more rich, more formidable ; and Napoleon 
thought it was the very moment for attacking the Monroe 
doctrine, and for making, as he said, " the Latin race hold 
equal sway with the Anglo-Saxon over the New World." 
If he meant by the " Latin race " the effete half- Indian, 
Mexican and South American peoples, which were to be 
set as rivals against the Anglo-Saxon race, represented by 
Yankees, Southerners, men of the West, and the English in 
Canada, he was widely wrong in his calculation ; but it is 
probable that " Latin " was his synonym for '* French " in 
this connection. 

The Monroe doctrine, as all Americans know, took its 
rise from certain words in a Presidential message of Mr. 
Monroe in 1822, though they were inserted in the mes- 
sage by Mr. Adams. They were to the effect that the 
United States would disturb no nation or government at 
present (/. ^., in 1822) existing on the North or South 
American continent, but that they would oppose all at- 
tempts by any European Government whatever to put down 
any free institutions that were the choice of the people, or 
to impose upon them any form of government against 
their will. 

Napoleon III. did not quite dare to fly in the face of 
the Monroe doctrine, even though the United States were 
embarrassed by civil war. There were plenty of Mexican 



MAXIMILIAN AND MEXICO. 1 97 

exiles in Paris, among them the Don Gutierrez who offered 
Maximihan the imperial crown. These men had secret 
interviews with the emperor. Thus the way was paved for 
Maximilian long before the time came to act, and possibly 
before he heard of the matter ; for there was a power be- 
hind the throne that was urging his elevation on the French 
emperor with all a woman's persuasive powers.^ 

It was not until after the Empress Eugenie had been left 
regent of France, during the campaign of Italy, in 1859, 
that she took any part in politics ; but from that time her 
influence was freely exercised, though she interested herself 
chiefly in foreign affairs. She did not like Victor Em- 
manuel, nor her husband's policy as regarded Italy. She 
dreaded the destruction of the pope's power as a temporal 
prince. Her sympathies were Austrian, and in conjunction 
with her friends the Prince and Princess Metternich she 
lost no opportunity of urging the establishment of Maxi- 
milian and Carlotta on the imperial throne of Mexico, 
She looked upon this as in some sort a compensation given 
by France to the House of Hapsburg for its losses in 
Italy. To her imagination, the expedition to Mexico 
seemed like a romance. She saw two lovers seated upon 
Montezuma's throne, — the oldest throne in the New World, 
— surrounded by the glories of the tropics. When there, 
they would restore the privileges of the Cathohc clergy, and 
would curb the revolutionary aspirations of the mongrel 
population of Mexico, — a population which, as a Spaniard, 
she hated and despised. To this end she intrigued with all 
her heart. Indeed, she and her friends the Metternichs 
acted in the preliminary arrangements of the plan the part 
of actual conspirators. 

After the French and Spanish forces landed in Mexico, 
accompanied by a few Englishmen, Juarez offered to make 
compensation for the wrongs complained of, and an agree- 
ment was drawn up and signed by General Prim and the 
French and English commanders at a place called La 
Soledad. 

■^ Pierre de Lano. 



198 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

England and Spain, when the agreement was sent to Europe 
for ratification, considered it satisfactory. France, having ul- 
terior designs, repudiated it altogether. The Spaniards and 
the English therefore withdrew their forces, and the French 
remained to fight out the quarrel with Juarez alone. 

Up to this time no allusion had been made as to any 
change in the Mexican government; but now French 
agents began to intrigue in favor of an empire and Maxi- 
milian. A small assembly of Mexican notables was with 
great difificulty convened in the city of Mexico, from which 
Juarez was absent, being engaged in carrying on the war. 
The only persons concerned in this assembly who took any 
real interest in its objects were the clergy, who believed that 
a prince of the House of Austria would be likely to restore to 
them all their property and privileges. 

There can be no doubt that such a government as Maxi- 
milian would have established in Mexico would have been 
a happy thing for that country and for civilization ; but it is 
equally certain that the Mexicans (meaning by that term the 
great mass of the people) did not want such a government. 
Above all, they did not want for their ruler a foreigner, backed 
by a foreign potentate. The only raison d'etre for Maxi- 
milian's government in any Mexican's mind was not that it 
would bring order and peace into the country, but that it 
might bring money from the coffers of the new emperor's ally. 
But when, after a while, the reverse of peace and order was 
the result of this new government, and when the French 
emperor declined to advance any more funds, nothing 
kept any man true to Maximilian but the dread of what 
the party of Juarez might do to him when the cause of the 
emperor should be overthrown. 

With this explanation we will go back to Miramar, where 
Maximilian and Carlotta, unquestionably deceived by the 
political manipulations of the French emperor, beheved, 
with joy and pride, that they were the choice of the Mexican 
people, and that they had nothing to do but to go forth and 
take possession of the promised land. 

On April 13, 1864, almost the darkest date during our 



MAXIMILIAN AND MEXICO. 1 99 

war for the cause of the Federal Union, the Archduke 
Maximihan and his wife quitted the soil of Austria. 

Early in the morning, in the port of Trieste and on the 
road to Miramar, all were astir. Friends from all parts of the 
Austrian Empire were hastening to bid farewell to the Arch- 
duke whom they loved. 

The '' Novara " and the French frigate " Themis " were 
lying off Trieste, ready to start ; and near them, riding at 
anchor, were six steamships belonging to the Austrian 
Lloyds, full of spectators. 

At about one o'clock p. m. the emperor, with his wife 
leaning on his arm, entered the town-hall of Trieste, where 
about twenty deputations were assembled to offer him fare- 
well addresses. Maximilian was much moved, and when 
the burgomaster spoke of the grief that all the people of 
the city would feel at his departure, he burst into tears. 
He embraced the burgomaster, shook hands with those 
about him, and whispered, as if to himself: "Something 
tells me that I shall never see this dear country more." 
His sensitive and poetic nature was very susceptible to sad 
presentiments ; his book teems with them. 

After the leave-taking, their Majesties entered the magni- 
ficent barge prepared for their use by the city of Trieste ; 
a salute of one hundred guns reverberated from the sides of 
the mountain, while twenty thousand hats and handkerchiefs 
waved a sad farewell. 

Maximilian and Carlotta embarked on board the " No- 
vara," which carried the Mexican flag. By four o'clock both 
vessels were well down in the offing, and not till then did the 
crowd separate. Those with telescopes had seen up to the 
last moment a figure standing on the poop-deck, with its 
face turned towards Miramar, and knew it for the form of 
Maximilian. 

The " Novara " touched at Jamaica. On May 28 it came 
in sight of the shores of Mexico, and cast anchor in the har- 
bor of Vera Cruz. 

The emperor and empress had expected a public re- 
ception. There was nothing of the kind. No welcome 



200 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

awaited them, — not even an official one. This was the 
more extraordinary because the "Themis" had been sent 
forward to announce the approach of the imperial party. 
Their disappointment at the want of enthusiasm was great. 
The French vice-admiral did his best to repair unfortunate 
omissions. He gave orders for a show of festivity ; but 
it was plain to see, from the indifference of the people 
in the streets, that they had no part or lot in the 
demonstration. 

After leaving the sea-coast, Maximilian proceeded to- 
wards his capital in an old shabby English barouche, his 
journey seeming rather Hke the expedition of an adventurer 
than the progress of an emperor. Passing through Orizaba 
and Puebla, the emperor and empress entered Mexico on 
June 12. French agents had paid for flowers to be scat- 
tered in their path, and a theatrical kind of procession 
was prepared, which was not agreeable to either of them. 
The only part of the population which hailed their com- 
ing with delight were the descendants of the Aztecs, many 
of whom appeared on the occasion in feather dresses 
preserved in their families since the time of Montezuma. 
In the evening there was a public performance at the 
theatre in honor of the new sovereigns, but not half the 
boxes were filled. 

The palace of Chapultepec, which had been assigned them 
as their residence, was destitute of comforts of any kind, 
and was much more like a second-class hotel than a habita- 
tion meet for princes. Yet even here, one of Maximilian's 
first cares was to lay out the grounds and to plant flowers. 

He was advised to make an immediate journey through 
his new dominions, in order to judge for himself of the 
aspirations and resources of the people. But he found a 
country broken down by war, without roads, without schools, 
without agriculture. " The only thing in this country which 
is well organized, sire," said a Mexican whom he was ques- 
tioning about the state of things, '' is robbery." 

There was thieving everywhere. The emperor's palace, 
and even his private apartments, were not spared. One 



MAXIMILIAN AND MEXICO. 201 

day, after a reception of officers high in military command, 
his revolver, inlaid with gold and ivory, which had lain on a 
table by his side, disappeared, and the empress missed two 
watches, which had gone astray under the dexterous finger- 
ing of her maids-of-honor. General Lopez, who was then 
commandant of the palace, wishing to give the emperor a 
proof of the accomplishments of his subjects in matters of 
this kind, offered to steal off his writing-table, within two 
hours, and without being noticed, any object agreed upon. 
He said he believed he could even carry off the table, — 
a joke at which the emperor laughed heartily. 

When Maximilian returned to his capital, after a journey 
of great peril, he ordered the construction of several high- 
roads, granted lands and privileges to two or three railroad 
companies, founded a good many schools, and set on foot a 
Mexican Academy of Sciences. His own taste for natural 
history was so great that he gave some foundation for the 
charge made against him that he would frequently shut 
himself up in his workroom to stuff birds. He devoted 
great attention to improvements in agriculture, and planned 
a manufacturing city, and a seaport on the Gulf of Mexico 
which he intended to call Miramar. 

His wife was an indefatigable helpmeet. She wrote all 
his European correspondence, but resented the interference 
of the French, and could be curt and energetic when the 
occasion called for self-assertion. 

An American gentleman who saw her at a court-ball at 
this period thus describes her : '' She was imperial in every 
look and action. The dignified and stately step so well 
suited to her station, and with her perfectly natural, would 
have seemed affectation in another. She did not seem re- 
markably tall, except in comparison with others. Her 
voice possessed a refinement peculiar to birth, education, 
and superior natures." 

But while the emperor and empress were laboring for the 
improvement of their realm, the Juarists were increasing in 
strength, and banditti carried on their enterprises with 
impunity up to the very gates of Mexico. Day after day 



202 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

the stage was robbed between Mexico and Jalapa. The 
Marquis de Radepont, a quiet traveller, saved himself by 
killing half-a-dozen highwaymen with his revolver ; but the 
Belgian ambassador, on his way to announce to their Im- 
perial Majesties the accession of Leopold II., the brother of 
Carlotta, was robbed of all his jewelry and money. 

In consequence of these disorders the emperor signed, 
on Oct. 3, 1865, in spite of the remonstrances of Marshal 
Bazaine, the French general-in-chief in Mexico, an order 
to the civil and military authorities to treat all armed gue- 
rilla bands as brigands, and to apply to them the utmost 
rigor of martial law. 

This was at once interpreted into permission to shoot all 
prisoners ; and three promising young Juarist generals who 
had fallen into the hands of one of Maximilian's command- 
ers were shot immediately, leaving behind them pathetic 
farewell letters to their friends. Maximilian did not foresee 
that he was signing his own death-warrant when he put his 
hand to this act of severity. 

Juarez himself, with a body of his followers, had retreated 
to the frontier, ready to pass over into Texas if the French 
attacked him. But the French were too few and too scat- 
tered to occupy a vast region of country where every in- 
habited house was a refuge for their foes. Moreover, the 
interest of Napoleon in the empire of Mexico was at an 
end. He hated a long war at any time, and was always 
ready to abandon an enterprise when he could not carry 
out his projects by a coup de main. The war was extremely 
unpopular in France. Financial ruin had come upon many 
Frenchmen from the failure of the Mexican bonds nego- 
tiated by the banker, Jecker, to pay interest to their bond- 
holders. The Civil War in the United States was at an 
end, and Mr. Seward was instructing the American ambas- 
sador in Paris to threaten the Emperor Napoleon with 
the enforcement of the doctrine of President Monroe. 
He resolved to withdraw his troops from Mexico, and to 
advance no more money to Maximilian. He wrote these 
orders to Marshal Bazaine. 



MAXIMILIAN AND MEXICO. 



203 



Maximilian, who fully understood by this time the condi- 
tion of Mexico, and foresaw all the dangers of his position 
when the French troops should be withdrawn, sent the em- 
press at this crisis to Europe to represent the situation of 
affairs to the French emperor, and to remind him of his 
promises. 

She embarked hurriedly and like a private person on 
board a French mail- steamer. Her stateroom was close to 
the propeller. The noise, coupled with her great anxiety 
and excitement, deprived her almost entirely of sleep dur- 
ing the voyage. On landing, she hastened to Paris, went 
to an hotel, and sent a message to the emperor, requesting 
an interview. This the emperor declined. Carlotta then 
hired a carriage and drove out to Saint-Cloud, where she 
insisted on seeing him. Their interview was very painful. 
At its close she exclaimed that she felt herself to blame, 
being a daughter of the house of Orleans, for ever having 
put faith in the Emperor Napoleon or his promises. Not- 
withstanding this reproach, the emperor, who was soft- 
hearted, pitied her extremely. She remained at Saint- 
Cloud for some hours, and that evening, when surrounded 
by the court circle, she threw back her head and begged for 
water. The emperor hastened to bring it to her with his 
own hand ; but she exclaimed that she would not take it 
from him, for she knew he wished to poison her. It was 
her first attack of mania. She was calmed, and the symp- 
toms passed off, but continued at intervals to return. 

From Paris she went to Rome, and there her mental 
malady more and more declared itself. She refused to eat 
anything but fruit, for fear of poison. Her first visit to the 
pope was made while he was breakfasting, when she 
snatched the cup of chocolate from his lips and swallowed 
it eagerly, exclaiming : " I am sure no one can have wished 
to poison you ! " After several other manifestations of her 
disordered brain at the Quirinal, steps were taken to for- 
ward her to Miramar. On reaching that beloved place, she 
grew more calm. She recovered for a time her interest in 
music, painting, and literature. The Sclavic peasants around 



204 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

her considered her a saint. When she passed, they used to 
kneel down on the highway. For years they refused to be- 
lieve in Maximilian's death. " He will come back ! We 
know he will come back ! " was the cry of the Dalmatians, 
who cherished his memory. 

After a time Carlotta was removed to Belgium, where 
she has been since secluded from the world, but tenderly 
watched over by her relations. From time to time she 
partially recovers her reason. 

Matters in Mexico after her departure grew worse every 
day. Bazaine had received orders to withdraw all French 
troops from the country. He was directed to withhold 
from MaximiHan all French support, and in obedience to 
these instructions he flung into the river Sequia and Lake 
Texcoco ^ all the guns and ammunition he could not 
take away. 

Prior to the withdrawal of the French troops, the French 
Government made several efforts to induce Maximihan to 
abdicate. The Marquis de Gallifet (of whom we shall hear 
again in another chapter) was sent, with two other French 
gentlemen, to urge him to leave Mexico. '' I know all the 
difficulties of my position," Maximilian replied, " but I shall 
not give up my post. A son of the house of Hapsburg 
never retreats in the face of danger." Nevertheless, after 
receiving the first letters from his wife, Maximilian's resolu- 
tion was shaken. He hoped at least to return to Europe as 
an emperor, and not a fugitive, and to lay aside his crown 
of his own accord. With this view he set out for Orizaba, 
where the " Dandolo " corvette was waiting to receive his 
orders. On his way he was delayed some hours, because 
the white mules that drew his carriage had been stolen. 

At Orizaba he was attacked by malarious chills. There, 
too, he received news of his wife's insanity. Some of his 
generals surrounded him, and prayed him not to abandon 
his followers to the vengeance of their enemies. The 
leaders of the clerical party also begged him, for the sake 

1 Prince Salm-Salm, Diary in Mexico. 



MAXIMILIAN AND MEXICO. 



205 



of the Church, to return to Mexico, promising him the 
support of the clergy throughout the country if he would 
but give up liberal ideas, and support, at all costs, the 
temporal prosperity of the Church. 

Maximilian, on the strength of these assurances, went 
back to his capital, protesting that he remained only for 
the good of other people, and was influenced neither by 
personal considerations nor political wishes of his own. 

But Maximilian was not the man to contend with the 
difficulties that beset him in Mexico. His very merits 
were against him. As we read the sad history of his fail- 
ure, we feel that in his hands the regeneration of Mexico 
was hopeless. Men like John or Henry Lawrence, heroes 
of the Indian Mutiny, accustomed to deal with semi- 
savages, might perhaps have succeeded ; but Maximilian 
was the product of an advanced civilization, and all his 
sentiments were of a super-refined character. He was no 
general; his forces were kept scattered over an immense 
area. He seems to have been no administrator. He was 
accustomed to deal with Italians, — men of enthusiastic 
natures and fanatical ideas. Mexicans had no enthusiasms ; 
and in place of patriotism there was a prevailing sentiment 
of thorough aversion to the French and to the foreigners 
they had brought with them. Maximilian had come to 
Mexico with all kinds of liberal projects for its civilization. 
It was like forcing sanitary improvements on the inhabitants 
of an Irish shanty, or catching a street gamin and im- 
posing on him the restraints and amenities of high-class 
culture. 

The departure of the French troops left the way clear 
for the party of Juarez. It rapidly gained strength, and 
prepared to besiege the emperor in his capital. " I cannot 
bear to expose the city to danger," said Maximilian, who, 
in spite of being continually harassed and cruelly deceived 
day after day, never failed in consideration for those about 
him. He retired to Queretaro, where Generals Miramon, 
Castillo, Mejia, Avellano, and Prince Salm-Salm had gath- 
ered a little army of about eight thousand men. 



206 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Maximilian at Queretaro showed all his nobleness of 
spirit, kindness of heart, and simplicity of life. During the 
siege, which lasted over two months, he shared the fatigues 
and privations of his common soldiers, and lived as they 
did, on the flesh of mules, while his officers' tables were 
much better supplied. He exposed his person upon all 
occasions, taking daily walks upon the bastions as tran- 
quilly as he might have done in the green alleys of his 
distant home. One day his eye fell upon six dead bodies 
dangling from the branches of six trees. He turned away, 
with intense emotion. They were the bodies of six of his 
own couriers, who had fallen into the hands of the enemy. 

He might have cut his way out of Queretaro at the head 
of his cavalry, but he hesitated to abandon his foot-soldiers. 
" I will die sword in hand," were now his daily words. 

Every day his men brought in prisoners. Even when 
such persons were suspected of being spies, Maximilian 
would not order their execution. '' No, no," he said ; " if 
things go well, there is no need ; if ill, I shall not have 
their blood upon my soul." 

When the siege had lasted seventy days, provisions grew 
so scarce that the only alternatives seemed a sortie or a 
surrender. The sortie was decided on. On the night of 
May 14, 1867, the seven thousand men still in Queretaro 
were to break through the lines of the enemy and endeavor 
to make their way to Vera Cruz. Singularly enough, the 
Juarist general, Escobedo, had fixed on the 15 th of May 
for his final assault. 

Neither sortie nor assault took place. The treason of 
General Lopez prevented the one and rendered the other 
unnecessary. Lopez, whom Maximihan had loaded with all 
sorts of kindness, — Lopez, who called himself the most 
devoted adherent of the emperor, — had sold the hfe of his 
friend and benefactor for two thousand ounces of gold ! 

One year before, when Lopez had been at Puebla in 
attendance on the empress, he had sent for his wife, who, 
having made a hurried journey, was prematurely confined, 
" I cannot allow your son," wrote Maximilian, '^ to come 



MAXIMILIAN AND MEXICO. 20/ 

into the world in another man's house. I send you the 
enclosed sum. Purchase the house where your son was 
born." 

Having kept up constant communication with the camp 
of the besiegers, Lopez, on the morning of May it^, sent 
a note to Escobedo, oifering to deliver over to him the 
convent of La Cruz, which was the emperor's headquarters. 
Escobedo accepted his proposals. About midnight Lopez 
and the troops under his command went over to the en- 
emy. The soldiers of Juarez quietly entered the town, and 
surrounded the convent where the emperor and his staff' 
were sleeping. 

At dawn Maximilian rose, dressed himself, woke Prince 
Salm-Salm, and they went out together, with no arms but 
their swords. As they reached the gates of the convent the 
emperor perceived Juarist soldiers on guard, and turning to 
his companion, cried, " We are betrayed ; here is the en- 
emy ! " At this moment Lopez, who had seen them come 
into the court-yard, pointed out the emperor to Colonel 
Rincon Gallardo, who was in command of the detachment 
from the army of Juarez. Rincon was an honorable sol- 
dier and kind-hearted. He said, loud enough to be heard 
by his own men : " They are citizens ; let them pass : they 
are not soldiers." The emperor was dressed in a black 
frock-coat, but with mihtary trousers and epaulettes. He 
and Prince Salm-Salm then walked through the convent 
gates and made their way in haste to the opposite quarter 
of the city. The streets were silent and empty. Suddenly 
a sharp fire of musketry was heard, mingled with Juarist 
and Imperial war-cries. Miramon with his troops was hold- 
ing one of the widest streets of Queretaro, when a ball hit 
him in the face. He fell, half blinded, and was taken 
prisoner. Miramon was the son of a French father and a 
Spanish mother, and was one of the very few generals on 
either side who were of pure white blood. 

The emperor, with Generals Mejia, Castillo, Avellano, 
and Prince Salm-Salm, retired to a little hill which com- 
manded the city. They had no artillery, no means of 



208 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

defending their position. They stood on the bare rock 
where they had taken refuge^ Hke shipwrecked sailors wait- 
ing for the fatal rising of the tide. General Escobedo, a 
coarse man, who had formerly been a muleteer, prepared 
to charge up the hill with four battalions of infantry and a 
strong party of cavalry. 

" Do not fire ; you will shed blood to no purpose," said 
the emperor to the little band of followers who surrounded 
him. Then, in a low, sad voice, he ordered one of his 
aides-de-camp to fasten a white handkerchief on the end 
of a bayonet. The Juarists, who were ascending the hill, 
came to a halt. Then, amid profound silence, the em- 
peror came forward. He paused a moment as he stepped 
out of the little group of his followers and looked around 
him. Then he descended the hill with a firm step, fol- 
lowed by several of his generals. 

The Juarists saluted him by their party cry, "Viva la 
libertad ! " They recognized the emperor. Maximilian 
walked straight up to their commander, an ex-Federal 
United States officer, who under the name of Corona was 
in command of a party of Americans who had entered the 
service of Juarez, and were called the Legion of Honor. 
This legion was composed of fifty men. Some had worn 
the blue, and some the gray. Each held rank in the Mex- 
ican army as an officer. 

"General," said Maximilian to Corona, " both men and 
fortune have betrayed me. There are widows and orphans 
enough already in the world. Here is my sword." 

" Sire," said the general, forgetting that the man who ad- 
dressed him was no longer emperor, "keep your sword." 
He then proposed to Maximilian to mount a horse, and 
escorted him, with the other prisoners, to the convent of 
Santa Teresita. 

There the emperor and his generals were shut up at once 
in a dark cellar, and not only had to sleep upon the damp 
earth floor, but were left to suffer from hunger. In a 
few days, however, Princess Salm-Salm brought them some 
relief. They were then transferred to the convent of La 



MAXIMILIAN AND MEXICO. 2OQ 

Capuchina, and their friends obtained permission to send 
them wine, clothes, and provisions. 

Princess Salm-Sahii, in the last act of this tragedy, showed 
herself to be a brave and generous woman. When her hus- 
band left the capital she had crossed the enemy's lines in 
order to get out of Mexico, but was twice in danger of 
being shot by the soldiers of Diaz. She was accused of 
supplying money to a troop of Austrian soldiers who, hav- 
ing been captured, were confined at Chapultepec, and 
she was imprisoned at Guadalupe. After a short deten- 
tion, however, she obtained leave to quit Mexico for Eu- 
rope ; but changing her route, she managed to rejoin her 
husband at Queretaro. Thence, hiding by day and travel- 
ling by night, she made her way back to San Luis de 
Potosi, where Juarez had his headquarters. She threw 
herself at his feet, and implored his mercy for the emperor ; 
but Juarez told her (not without some signs of compas- 
sion) that he felt no inclination to spare his life, and 
that if he were willing to do so, he would not be per- 
mitted by his followers to show him any clemency. 

When Maximilian heard of this brave enterprise on 
his behalf, he could not refrain from tears. 

The prisoners were three weeks at La Capuchina, in 
complete uncertainty as to what would be done with them. 
Indeed, the Juarists seemed much embarrassed by their 
prize. On June 10 they were jiformed that Juarez had 
sent an order to have them tried by a court-martial, which 
would be held on the 12 th of June. 

"Where are you going to take me?" asked Maximilian 
on that day of the officer who came to escort him. ^^ To 
the court-martial," was the reply. "Where is it held?" 
said Maximilian. ''In the theatre." "Then I refuse to 
accompany you. I v/ill not be made a public spectacle 
at a theatre. You may go alone." 

The officer, not being authorized to use force, went 
away. The trial proceeded without the presence of the 
prisoner. Generals Miramon and Mejia, however, were 
dragged upon the stage where the court-martial was 

14 



2IO FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

sitting. The play-house was crowded with spectators. It 
was a tragedy with no admission-fee. The proceedings 
lasted three days. The emperor was accused of usur- 
pation, of instigating civil war, and of causing the death 
of forty thousand patriots, hanged or shot in conseqence 
of his order of October 3, intended to operate only against 
armed bands of robbers. 

On the morning of June 15, 1867, General Escobedo 
presented himself in the prison, holding the sentence of 
the court-martial in his hand. Maximilian, who could 
guess his fate,, said quietly : " Read it^ General ; I am 
ready to hear you." 

Maximilian^ Miramon, and Mejia were condemned to 
be shot. 

" I understand you," said the emperor, with perfect 
calmness. " The law of October 3 was made to put down 
robbers : this sentence is the work of murderers." 

Escobedo laid his hand on his revolver with a sudden 
exclamation. Then, recovering himself, he said sarcasti- 
cally : *' I suppose that a criminal must be allowed the 
right to vilify his judges." 

Maximilian turned his back on him^ and Escobedo left 
the prison. 

The execution had been ordered for the next morning, 
but was put off till the 19th, by order of Juarez. 

Meantime the English and Prussian ambassadors has- 
tened to Juarez, hoping to obtain mercy for the late em- 
peror. The French and Austrian courts, by telegraph, 
implored the mediation of the United States. There was 
no American minister at that time in Mexico, but Mr. 
Seward sent telegraphic despatches to Juarez, pointing out 
that the execution of Maximihan would rouse the feelings 
of the civiUzed world against the Mexican Republic. 

All was of no avail. The idea of foreign intervention in 
the affairs of Mexico was so distasteful to the Mexicans 
that these pleadings on the late emperor's behalf by 
foreign Governments only accelerated his fate. 

During the night before his death, Maximilian asked 



MAXIMILIAN AND MEXICO. 2 1 1 

his jailers for a pair of scissors. He was refused. Then 
he implored one of them to cut off a lock of his hair. 
When that was done, he wrote the following pathetic letter 
to Carlotta : — 

My beloved Carlotta, — If God should permit you one 
of these days to get well enough to read these lines, you will 
know how sad has been my fat.e ever since your departure. 
You took with you my happiness, my very life, and my good 
fortune. Why did I not take your advice .'' So many sad things 
have taken place, so many unexpected catastrophes and un- 
deserved misfortunes have fallen on me, that I have now lost 
heart and hope, and look upon death as my good angel. 
My death will be sharp and sudden, without pain. I shall fall 
gloriously, like a soldier, like a conquered sovereign. . . . 
If you cannot, dearest, bear up under your load of sorrow, 
if God in His mercy soon reunites us by your death, I will 
bless His fatherly hand, which now seems very heavy upon 
me. Adieu, adieu ! 

Your poor Max. 

He kissed this letter, folded into it the light silky lock 
of his own hair, and placed it with other letters which he 
had written to his mother and friends. They were all in 
French, and written in a clear, firm, regular hand. His noble 
nature shone in every line. They give the key to the irre- 
sistible personal sympathy he inspired in all who knew him. 
His enemies were aware of this, and no judge or general who 
had ever known him sat on his court-martial. 

As six o'clock was striking on the morning of June 19, 
the door of the prison was unbarred. " I am ready," said 
Maximilian. 

As he stepped forth from the door of the convent, he 
exclaimed : " What a beautiful morning ! I have always 
fancied I should like to die in sunshine, — on a summer 
day." 

He entered the carriage in waiting. Miramon and Mejia 
followed him, with the priest who attended them in their 
last moments. They were escorted by a body of four 
thousand men, and were driven to the same rocky height 



212 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

on which they had been captured, called the Cerro della 
Campana, They sat upright in the carriage during the 
drive, with proud smiles upon their faces. They were care- 
fully dressed, as if for an occasion of festivity. The popu- 
lation of the place was all abroad to see them pass, and 
looked at them with silent pity and admiration. The 
calmness and self-possession of the emperor, about to die, 
touched even the most indifferent spectators. The women 
freely shed tears. 

Maximilian was a handsome, striking-looking man. His 
beautiful light hair was parted by a straight line from his 
forehead to the nape of his neck. His blue eyes were 
clear and soft, with a beseeching look in them. His hands 
were beautifully white, his fingers elegant and taper. 

As they neared the place of execution, General Mejia 
suddenly turned pale, covered his face, and with a sob 
fell back in his place in the carriage. He had caught 
sight of his wife, agonized, dishevelled, with her baby in 
her arms, and all the appearance of a madwoman. 

The party arrived at the foot of the little hill. The 
emperor sprang out, brushed off some dust which had 
settled on his clothes, and going up to the firing party, 
gave each man an ounce of gold. "Take good aim, my 
friends," he said. " Do not, if possible, hit me in the 
face, but shoot right at my heart." 

One of the soldiers wept, Maximilian went to him, 
and putting his cigar-case, of silver filigree, into his hand, 
said : " Keep that, my friend, in remembrance of me. It 
was given to me by a prince more fortunate than I am 
now." 

The non-commissioned officer then came near, and said 
he hoped that he would forgive him. " My good fellow," 
replied Maximilian, cheerfully, " a soldier has but to obey 
orders; his duty is to do his duty." 

Then, turning to Miramon and Mejia, he said : " Let 
me, true friends, embrace you for the last time ! " He 
did so, and then added : " In a few minutes we shall be 
together in a better world." 



MAXIMILIAN AND MEXICO. 213 

Turning to Miramon, he said : " General, the bravest 
man should have the place of honor. Take mine." 

Mejia being very much cast down by the sad spectacle 
presented by his poor, distracted wife, Maximilian again 
pressed his hands, saying : " God will not abandon our 
suffering survivors. For those who die unjustly, things 
will be set right in another world." 

The drums began to beat. The end was near. Maxi- 
milian stepped forward, mounted on a stone, and addressed 
the spectators. 

" Mexicans ! men of my rank and of my race, who feel 
as I feel, must either be the benefactors of the people over 
whom they reign, or martyrs. It was no rash ambition of 
my own that called me hither ; you, you yourselves, in- 
vited me to accept your throne. Before dying, let me 
tell you that with all the powers I possess I sought your 
good. Mexicans ! may my blood be the last blood that 
you shed ; may Mexico, the unhappy country of my adop- 
tion, be happy when I am gone ! " 

As soon as he had resumed his place, a sergeant came 
up to order Miramon and Mejia to turn round. As traitors, 
they were to be shot in the back. 

" Farewell, dear friends," said Maximilian, and crossing 
his arms, he stood firm as a statue. 

When the command was given : " Shoulder arms ! " a 
murmur of protestation, accompanied by threats, rose 
among part of the crowd, in which there were many In- 
dians. Their national superstitions and traditions had 
attached this simple people to the emperor. They had 
a prophecy among them that one day a white man would 
come over the seas to set them free, and many of them 
looked for this savior in Maximilian. 

The officers in command turned towards the crowd, 
shaking their swords. Then came the words : " Take 
aim ! Fire ! " 

" Long live Mexico ! " cried Miramon. 

" Carlotta ! Poor Carlotta ! " exclaimed Maximilian. 

When the smoke of the volley had cleared away, three 



214 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, 

corpses lay upon the earth. That of the emperor had 
received five balls. The victims were placed in coffins 
which lay ready near the place of execution, and, es- 
corted as they had been before, were carried back to the 
convent of the Capuchins. 

" The emperor being dead, we will do all honor to the 
corpse of the Archduke of Austria," said Colonel Miguel 
Palacios, to whom this care was given. The corpse was 
embalmed, and the body placed in a vault. 

The Russian ambassador, Baron Magnus, and the Ameri- 
can commander of a United States vessel of war which 
lay off Vera Cruz, in vain solicited the body of the late 
emperor. The Austrian Vice-admiral Tegethoff (the 
illustrious conqueror at Lissa) had to come and personally 
demand it in November of the next year. He at the same 
time obtained the release of the Austrian soldiers still re- 
tained as prisoners, and of Prince Salm-Salm, lying under 
sentence of death since the execution of the emperor. 

As for the traitor Lopez, instead of the two thousand 
ounces of gold that he expected, he got only seven thou- 
sand dollars. His wife refused to live with him after his 
treachery to Maximilian; and once when he went to see 
General Rincon Gallardo to request his influence to get 
himself restored to his former rank in the Mexican army, 
which he had forfeited by his connection with the Im- 
perial Government, the answer he received was : " Colonel 
Lopez, if I ever recommend you for any place, that place 
will be under a tree, with a rope round your neck tied 
to one of its branches." 

MaximiHan will live in history as a good man and a 
martyred sovereign. Long after his death, the Indians in 
Queretaro would not put up an adobe hut without inserting 
in it a pebble from the hill on which he was executed. 

On the very day of his death an order signed by him 
was received in Europe, not for rifled cannon, not for 
needle-guns, but for two thousand nightingales, which he 
desired to have purchased in the Tyrol to add to the 
attractions of his empire. 




EMPEROR NAPOLEON III. 



CHAPTER XL 

THE EMPEROR AND EMPRESS AT THE SUMMIT OF PROSPERITY. 

THE visit paid by the Emperor Napoleon and the 
Empress Eugenie to Queen Victoria at Windsor in 
1856 was returned in 1857. 

It was on the i8th of August that the queen, her husband, 
the Prince of Wales, then a boy of fourteen, and the Prin- 
cess Royal landed at Boulogne. The royal yacht had been 
in sight since daybreak, the emperor anxiously watching it 
from the shore ; but it was two p. m. before it was moored 
to the ^uai. There can be no better account of this visit 
than that given by Queen Victoria. The following extracts 
are taken from her journal : — 

" At last the bridge was adjusted, the emperor stepped across. 
I met him half-way, and embraced him twice, after which he led 
me on shore amid acclamations, salutes, and every sound of joy 
and respect. The weather was perfect, the harbor crowded 
with war-ships, the town and the heights were decorated with 
gay colors." 

The delay in getting up to the wharf postponed the 
queen's entrance into Paris, and greatly disappointed the 
crowds who waited for her coming. They were also disap- 
pointed that the greatest lady in the world exhibited no 
magnificence in costume. But the queen herself was 
greatly impressed by her first view of Paris : — 

" The approaching twilight rather added to the beauty of the 
scene ; and it was still quite light enough when we passed down 
the Boulevard de Strasbourg (the emperor's own creation) 
and along the Boulevards by the Porte Saint-Denis, the Made- 
leine, the Place de la Concorde, and the Arch of Triumph, to 
see the objects round us." 



2l6 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

They drove through the Bois de Boulogne in the dusk to 
the palace of Saint-Cloud ; but all the way was lined with 
troops, and bands playing "God Save the Queen," at inter- 
vals. The queen was particularly impressed by the Zouaves, 
" The friends," she says (for the Crimean War was then in 
progress), '^of my dear Guards in the Crimea." 

The birth of the Prince Imperial being an event in pros- 
pect, the empress was not allowed to fatigue herself, and first 
met the queen on the latter's arrival at Saint-Cloud. " In 
all the blaze of lamps and torches," says the queen, " amidst 
the roar of cannon, and bands, and drums, and cheers, we 
reached the palace. The empress, with Princess Mathilde 
and the ladies, received us at the door, and took us up a 
beautiful staircase, lined with magnificent soldiers. ... I 
felt quite bewildered, but enchanted." 

At dinner General Canrobert, who was fresh from the 
Crimea, was placed next to her Majesty, and gave her his 
war experiences. Next day the royal party went to the Ex- 
position Universelle, then going on in Paris, and afterwards, 
while the queen was receiving the ambassadors, the emperor 
drove the Prince of Wales through the streets of Paris ; he 
afterwards took his older guests sight-seeing in his capital. 
" As we crossed the Pont de Change," writes the queen, 
" the emperor said, pointing to the Conciergerie, ' That is 
where I was in prison.' " He alluded to the time when he 
was brought from Strasburg to Paris, before being shipped 
for Rio Janeiro. " Strange," continues the queen, " to be 
driving with us as emperor through the streets of Paris in 
triumph ! " 

They visited Versailles (where the queen sketched), and 
afterwards went to the Grand Opera. They saw Paris illu- 
minated that night as they drove back to Saint-Cloud, the 
emperor and Prince Albert recalling old German songs ; 
and the queen says : *' The emperor seems very fond of 
his old recollections of Germany. There is much that is 
German, and very little — nothing, in fact — markedly 
French in his character." 

One day all the royal party went out in a hack carriage, 



AT THE SUMMIT OF PROSPERITY. 2\J 

with what the queen calls " common bonnets and veils," 
and drove incognito round Paris. Sometimes they talked 
politics, sometimes they seem to have joked and laughed 
with childish glee and enjoyment ; and one night the em- 
peror took the queen by torchlight to see the tomb cf his 
great uncle at the Invalides. A guard of old warriors who 
had served under Napoleon, with Santini, his valet at St. 
Helena, at their head, escorted the queen of England to the 
chapel where stood Napoleon's coffin, not yet entombed, 
with the sword of Austerlitz lying upon it. The band in 
the chapel was playing " God Save the Queen," while without 
raged a sudden thunder-storm. 

The mornings were devoted to quiet pleasures and sight- 
seeing, the evenings to operas, state dinners, and state balls. 
The great ball given on this occasion in the galleries of 
Versailles was talked of in Paris for years after. " The 
empress," says the queen, "met us at the top of the stair- 
case, looking like a fairy-queen or nymph, in a white dress 
trimmed with bunches of grass and diamonds, a beautiful 
tour de corsage of diamonds round the top of her dress, and 
all en riviere ; the same round her waist, and a correspond- 
ing headdress, and her Spanish and Portuguese orders. The 
emperor said when she appeared : ' Comme tu es belle ! ' " 

Next da)^, as the emperor drove the queen in an open 
carriage, they talked of the Orleans family, whose feelings 
had been greatly hurt by a recent sequestration of their 
property. The emperor tried to make excuses for this act, — 
excuses that seemed to the queen but tame, — and then he 
drove to the chapel built over the house where the Duke of 
Orleans had died on the Avenue de Neuilly. The emperor 
bought her two of the medals sold on the spot, one of which 
bore the likeness of the Comte de Paris, with an inscription 
calling him the hope of France. 

The visit ended after eight delightful days, and the em- 
peror escorted his guests back to Boulogne. 

Prince Albert, the queen confesses, was not so much car- 
ried away by the fascinations of their new friend as herself; 
but the empress secured his entire commendation. 



2l8 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CE?ITURY. 

The queen and the emperor continued to correspond, 
and subsequently met several times, at Osborne House or at 
Cherbourg. 

I have told at some length of this visit, because it seemed 
to me to mark the culminating point of Napoleon III.'s suc- 
cessful career ; not only was he fully admitted into the inner 
circle of European sovereigns, but his place there was con- 
firmed by the personal friendship and alliance of the greatest 
among them. 

In 1867 there was another Universal Exposition held in 
Paris j and this was also a time of great outward glory and 
triumph for the emperor, surrounded as he was by European 
emperors, crown princes, and kings ; but Queen Victoria 
was then a sorrowing widow, and decay was threatening 
Napoleon's apparent prosperity. 

It was in 1867 that the emperor and empress received 
the czar, the sultan, the Crown Prince of Prussia, Princess 
Alice of Hesse Darmstadt, and many other crowned heads 
and celebrities. It was a year of fetes and international 
courtesies. But in Paris itself there was a strange feeling 
of insecurity, — a fearful looking for something, society 
knew not what. " It seemed," said one who breathed the 
rarefied air in which lived the upper circles of society, 
" as if the air were charged with electricity ; as if the 
shadows of coming events were being darkly cast over 
the joyous city." 

One of the most remarkable sights of that gay time of 
hollowness and brilliancy was the review given in honor of 
the Emperor of Russia, on June 6. No less than sixty 
thousand French troops, of all arms of the service, filed past 
the three grand-stands on the race-course of the Bois de 
Boulogne. On the central stand sat the Empress Eugenie, 
with the Prince Imperial, the Crown Princess of Prussia, 
her sister. Princess Alice, and the Grand Duchess of Leuch- 
tenberg. Before this stand, on horseback on one side, sat 
the Grand Duke Vladimir, the Czarevitch (the present Czar 
of Russia;, the Crown Prince of Prussia (since the lamented 
Emperor Frederick), Prince Gortschakoff (the Russian 



AT THE SUMMIT OF PROSPERITY. 219 

prime minister), Count Bismarck, and an English noble- 
man ; on the other side were the Due de Leuchtenberg, 
the Duke of Mecklenburg, and the Prince of Hesse Darm- 
stadt ; while in the centre of them all rode the czar, with 
Napoleon III. on one hand, and on the other the king of 
Prussia.^ 

How little could any of those who looked upon that 
throng of royal personages imagine what in little more 
than two years was coming on them all ! 

The emperor was fond of literature, and when drawn 
into a literary discussion, his half-closed eyes would gleam 
with sudden light, and his criticisms would be both witty 
and valuable. During his later years, harassed by sick- 
ness and perplexities of all kinds, his greatest pleasure was 
to shut himself up in his study, and there work upon his 
" Life of Caesar." He wrote it entirely himself, though he 
had many learned men in France and Germany employed 
in looking up references and making extracts for him. The 
book was considered a work of genuine merit. To its au- 
thor it was a labor of love. He threw into it all his experi- 
ence of Ufe, all his theories, all his Napoleonic convictions ; 
for in Caesar and Napoleon he found many parallels. 
He hoped to be admitted as a literary man into the French 
xA.cademy, and he meant to base his claim upon this book. 

I have said nothing of the cares that oppressed the em- 
peror in connection with the war in the Crimea, which was 
prolonged far beyond his expectations ; of the campaign in 
Italy, broken short off by threats of intervention made by 
the king of Prussia, and followed by feelings of disappoint- 
ment and revenge on the part of the Italians ; of the inter- 
vention of the emperor in 1866, after the battle of Sadowa, 
to check the triumphant march of the Prussian army 
through Austria ; nor of the bombs of Orsini, which led to 
a rupture of the friendliness between France and England, 
breaking up the cordial relations which existed between the 
two courts in 1857, and reviving that panic about French 
invasion which seems periodically to attack Englishmen 

1 Blackwood's Magazine. 



220 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

ever since the great scare in the days of Bonaparte. These 
subjects belong rather to historical reminiscences of Eng- 
land, Italy, or Germany; but the emperor had anxieties 
besides in France, and often found it hard to regulate with 
discretion even the ways of his own household. 

The empress, who after she had governed France as 
regent in 1859, during her husband's absence in the Itahan 
war, had been admitted to councils of state, by no means 
approved either her husband's domestic or foreign policy. 
We have seen that her influence was strongly exerted to 
bring about the unfortunate attempt to give an emperor 
and empress to Mexico ; but on two other points that she 
had at heart she failed. She could not persuade her hus- 
band to undertake the reconstruction of the kingdom of 
Poland, nor to assist Queen Isabella of Spain when her 
subjects, exasperated at last by her excesses, drove her 
over the French frontier. The empress disliked many of 
the coterie who enjoyed her husband's intimacy, especially 
his cousin. Prince Napoleon. She resented the prince's 
opposition to her marriage ; she disliked his manners, 
his political opinions, his aggressive opposition to all the 
offices of religion; and she succeeded in detaching him 
from the emperor's confidence, and in hindering his taking 
part in public affairs. To his wife — the Princess Clotilde 
— she was deeply attached ; but that did not serve to recon- 
cile her to the prince, her husband. Both ladies were op- 
posed to any diminution of the pope's temporal power in 
Italy ; but the private circle of the friends of the empress 
was too gay for the chastened nature of the Princess Clo- 
tilde, and by degrees her intimacy with the empress became 
less close and affectionate than it had been in the early 
days of her unhappy marriage. 

An episode in the private life of the palace, in 1859, 
created considerable friction in Paris, and provoked remon- 
strances from the emperor's ministers.-^ This was the ad- 
mission to the circle of intimates who surrounded the 
empress of the mesmerist and medium Home. This man 

1 Pierre de Lano. 



AT THE SUMMIT OF PROSPERITY. 221 

gave himself out to be an American; but many persons sus- 
pected that his native land was Germany, and some said he 
was a secret agent of that court, which had emissaries all 
over France, in search of useful information. The empress, 
having heard of Home's strange feats of table-turning and 
spirit-rapping in fashionable salons of the capital, was eager 
to witness his performances. The women in the high society 
of Paris were greatly excited about them. Spiritualism was 
the fad of the season, and the empress caught the infection. 
The emperor, who was present at many of the exhibitions at 
the Tuileries, was also, it is said, much impressed by some 
of them, especially by a mysterious invisible hand laid firmly 
on his shoulder, and by an icy breath that passed over his 
face. But although the emperor, always indulgent to his 
wife, resisted at first the advice of his counsellors to get rid 
of Home, he was forced at last to put an end to the 
seances at the Tuileries, Fontainebleau, and Biarritz. The 
spirits '• summoned " had had the imprudence to obtrude 
upon him their own views of his policy. When the alliance 
with Italy and a probable war with Austria were under dis- 
cussion in the cabinet, the spirit-inspired pencil at the 
Tuileries scrawled these words : '' The emperor should de- 
clare war and deliver Italy from the Austrians." Not long 
afterwards, the vulgar presumption of Home, who had ac- 
companied the court to Biarritz, provoked the emperor, 
and caused him to give ear to the earnest remonstrances of 
his Minister for Foreign Affairs. He gave orders that Home 
should appear at the Tuileries no more. 

Home died not long after in Germany, forgotten by the 
world of fashion, but leaving behind him a little circle of 
ardent believers. 

The story of the emperor's later life seems to me to be 
one full of pathos and of pain. It is the record of a man 
who knew himself to be slowly dying, whose physical 
strength was ebbing day by day, but who was bearing up 
under the vain hope of accomplishing the impossible. 
One admires his extreme patience, his uncomplaining 
perseverance, as he tried to roll the stone of Sisyphus, yet 



222 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

with unspoken misgivings in his heart that it would escape 
from him and crush the hopes of his Hfe, as it rolled back 
out of his hands. 

" Poor emperor ! " says the eye-witness who beheld him 
in his hour of triumph, before the grand-stand, in 1867, at 
the great review. '' He was a friend to all, and he fell 
through his friends. He was very true to England, what- 
ever he may have been to other countries ; but England 
failed him, unfortunately in Denmark, fortunately in Mexico, 
and fatally in 1870." ^ 

It seems, too, as if the world forgets now — what as- 
suredly must be remembered hereafter in history — that it 
was he who relieved Europe from the treaties of Vienna, 
and asserted the claims of nationalities; that he brought 
about the resurrection of Italy ; that through his policy we 
have a solution satisfactory to the world in general of the 
question of the pope's power as a temporal prince in Italy; 
that he was the builder of modern Paris, the promoter of 
agriculture, the railroad king of France, the peasant's and 
the workman's friend. 

In early life he had been an adventurer ; but a kind heart 
gave him gracious manners. He was grateful, faithful, and 
generous ; terribly prodigal of money, and the victim of the 
needy men by whom he was surrounded. It seems as if, 
in spite of his coitp d'etat (which, subtracting its massacres, 
may have been a measure of self-preservation), he deserves 
better of the world and of France than to have his mem- 
ory spurned and spat upon, as men do now. 

He gave France eighteen years of pre-eminent pros- 
perity ; he left her, to be sure, in ruins. In his fall he 
utterly obHterated the prestige of the name of Bonaparte. 
No Bonaparte, probably, will ever again awaken the enthu- 
siasm of the French people, — an enthusiasm which Napo- 
leon III. reUed on, justly at first, and fatally afterwards, 
when a generation had arisen in France, from whom the 
feeling had passed away. 

The emperor's malady, which was slowly sapping his 
1 Blackwood's Magazine. 



AT THE SUMMIT OF PROSPERITY. 223 

Strength, is said to be the most painful one that flesh is 
heir to. Every movement was pain to him. Absolute 
rest was what he needed, but cares pressed hard upon him 
on every side. He must die, and leave his empire in the 
hands of a woman and a child. His government had been 
wholly personal. He could not transmit his power, such 
as it was, to any other person, — least of all could he place 
it in feeble hands. There were no props to his throne. 
No Bismarck or Cavour stood beside him, to whom he 
might confide his wife and son, and feel that though his 
hand no longer held the helm, the ship would sail straight 
on the course he had laid down for her. The men about 
him were third and fourth rate men, — all of them enor- 
mously his own inferiors. They cheated and deceived and 
plundered him ; and he knew it in a measure, though not 
as he knew it after his downfall. 

The emperor said once : " There is but one Bonapartist 
among us, and that is Fleury. The empress is a Legitimist, 
I am a SociaHst, and Prince Napoleon a Republican." As 
he contemplated the future, it seems to have occurred to 
him that the only thing that could be done was to teach 
France to govern herself, — to change his despotic authority 
into a constitutional government. He might live long 
enough, he thought, to make the new plan work, and if, by 
a successful war with Germany, a war impending and per- 
haps inevitable, he could gain brilliant military glory; if 
he could restore to France that frontier of the Rhine which 
had been wrested from her by Europe after the downfall of 
his uncle, — his dynasty would be covered with glory, and 
all might go on right for a few years, till his boy should be 
old enough to replace him. 

Both these expedients he tried. In 1869 he announced 
that he was about to grant France liberal institutions. He 
put the empress forward whenever it was possible, and he 
made up his mind that as war with Germany was sure to 
come, the sooner it came, the better, that he might reap its 
fruits while some measure of life and strength was left him. 
Long before, Prince Albert had assured him that his policy, 



t 
224 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

which made his ministers mere heads of bureaux, which 
never called them together for common action as members 
of one cabinet, which compelled each to report only to his 
master, who took on trust the accuracy of the reports made 
to him, was a very dangerous mode of governing. It was 
indeed very unhke his uncle's practice, though it might have 
been theoretically his system. Both uncle and nephew 
came into power by a coup d'etat, — the one on the i8th 
Brumaire (Nov. 9, 1799), the other on Dec. 2, 1851. Both 
were undoubtedly the real choice of the people ; both 
really desired the prosperity of France : but the younger 
man was more genuine, more kindly, more human than the 
elder one. The uncle surrounded himself with " mighty 
men, men of renown," — great marshals, great diplomatists, 
great statesmen. Louis Napoleon had not one man about 
him whom he could trust, either for honesty, ability, or 
personal devotion, unless, indeed, we except Count Walewski. 
All his Ufe he had cherished his early ideas of the liberation 
of Italy, which he accomplished ; of the resurrection of 
Poland, which he never found himself in a position to at- 
tempt ; of the rectification of the frontier of France, which 
he in part accomphshed by the attainment of Nice and 
Savoy; and, finally, his dream included the restoration to 
France of self-government, with order reconciled to liberty. 
As early as January, 1867, the emperor was consulting, 
not only his friends, but his political opponents as to his 
scheme of transforming despotism into a parliamentary 
government. He wrote thus to M. Emile OUivier, a leader 
of the liberal party in France : ^ — 

" Believe me, I am not pausing through indecision, nor through 
a vain infatuation as to my prerogatives ; but my fear is of part- 
ing in this country, which is shaken by so many conflicting 
passions, with the means of re-establishing moral order, which 
is the essential basis of liberty. My embarrassment on the 
subject of a law of the Press is not how to find the power of re- 
pression, but how to define in a law what deserves repression. 
The most dangerous articles may escape repression, while the 

•^ Pierre di Lano. 



AT THE SUMMIT OF PROSPERITY. 225 

most insignificant may provoke prosecution. Tliis has always 
been the difiiculty. Nevertheless, in order to strike the public 
mind by decisive measures, I should like to effect at one stroke 
what has been called the d'owning of the edifice. I should like 
to do this at once and forever ; for it is important to me, and it 
is above all important to the country, ... I wish to advance 
firmly in a straight line, without oscillating to the right or left. 
You see that I have spoken to you with perfect frankness." 

We also see in this letter one of Louis Napoleon's char- 
acteristics, — a fondness for taking people by surprise. 
Nearly everything he did was a surprise to the public, and 
yet it had long been maturing in his own mind. 

The next time M. OlHvier saw the emperor he was told 
of his intention to grant the right of holding political meet- 
ings ; the responsibility of cabinet ministers to the Chamber ; 
and the almost entire freedom of the Press. The emperor 
added, with a smile : ^' I am making considerable conces- 
sions, and if my government immediately succeeded that of 
the First Empire, this would be acknowledged ; but since I 
came after parliamentary governments, my concessions will 
be considered small." 

The emperor's experiment was a failure. The moment 
restraint was taken off, and the French had Uberty of speech 
and freedom of the Press, they became like boys released 
from school and its strict discipline. The brutal excesses 
of language in the Parisian newspapers, the fierceness of 
their attacks upon the Government, and the shamelessness 
of their slander, alarmed the emperor and the best of his 
personal adherents, who had been by no means supporters 
of his policy. But though the experiment gave signs of 
never being likely to succeed, and no one seemed pleased 
with the new system, the emperor persevered. He refused 
to withdraw his reforms ; he declined to make what children 
call "an Indian gift " to his people : but the effect of the 
divided counsels by which he was embarrassed was that 
these reforms were accepted by the pubHc merely as experi- 
ments, to be tried during good behavior, and not as the 
basis of a new system definitively entered upon. 

15 



226 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

All through the year 1869 the difficulties of the course 
which the emperor adopted grew greater and greater. 
The emancipated Press was rampant. It knew no pity and 
no decency. Its articles on the emperor's failing health 
(which he insisted upon reading) were cruel in the extreme. 
Terrible anxieties for the future must have haunted him. If 
his project for self-government in France must prove a 
failure, when he was dead, what then? Could a child and a 
woman govern as he had done by a despotic will? He had 
done so in his days of health and strength ; but events now 
seemed to intimate that his government had been a failure 
rather than a success. 

Lord Palmerston, writing from Paris in Charles X.'s time, 
said : " Bonaparte in the last years of his reign crushed 
every one else, both in politics and war. He allowed no 
one to think and act but himself." 

Somewhat the same remark could be applied to the Third 
Napoleon. But Napoleon I. was a great administrator as 
well as a great general ; his activity was inexhaustible, he 
corresponded with everybody, he looked after everything, 
he knew whether he was well or ill served ; and his mode 
of obtaining power did not hinder his availing himself of 
the best talent in France. The case of his nephew was the 
reverse of this. His highest quality was his tenacity of 
purpose, and his disposition was inclined to kindly tolerance, 
even of pecuniary greed and slipshod service. He could 
rouse himself to great exertion ; but in the later days of Im- 
perialism, pain and his decaying physical powers had ren- 
dered him inert ; moreover, in his general habits he had 
always been indolent and pleasure-loving. In carrying out 
the coup (Tetat nine tenths of the public men in France had 
been subjected to humihations and indignities, by which 
they were permanently outraged, and a host of co-conspira- 
tors and adventurers had acquired claims upon the emperor 
that it was not safe to disregard. Places and money were 
distributed among them with reckless profusion, and many 
a shady money transaction, throwing discredit on some men 
high in favor with the emperor, was passed over, to avoid 
exposure. 



AT THE SUMMIT OF PROSPERITY. 22/ 

On the other hand, the emperor improved Paris till he 
made it the most beautiful city in the world. It was his 
aim to open wide streets through the old crowded quarters 
where revolution hid itself, hatching plots and crimes. He 
provided fresh air and drainage. He turned the Bois de 
Boulogne from a mere wild wood into the magnificent 
pleasure-ground of a great city. He completed the Louvre, 
and demolished the straggling, hideous buildings which dis- 
figured the Carrousel in Louis Philippe's time. The work- 
ing population, which his improvements drove out of the 
Faubourg Saint Antoine emigrated to high and healthy 
quarters in Montmartre and Belleville, where a beautiful 
park was laid out for them. No part of Paris escaped these 
improvements, though it took immense sums to complete 
them. But while their good results will be permanent, their 
immediate effect was to raise rents and make the increased 
cost of living burdensome to people of small incomes. The 
work brought also into Paris an enormous population of 
masons, carpenters, and day-laborers, — a population which 
was a good deal like the monster in the fairy tale, which 
had to be fed each day with the best ; for if once it became 
hungry or dissatisfied, it might devour the man of science 
who had brought it into being. 

Still, the French are ungrateful to Napoleon IH. when 
they forget how much they are indebted to him for the ex- 
tension of their commerce, the growth of their railroads, the 
improvement of their cities, and above all for his attention 
to sanitary science and to agriculture. 

When he came to the throne, every traveller through 
France was struck by the poor breeds of swine, sheep, and 
cattle ; the slovenly system of cultivation, the wide waste 
lands, the poor implements for farming, and the want of 
drainage. In his exile the emperor had lived much with 
EngUsh landowners, and he endeavored more than any- 
thing else to improve agriculture. He spent great sums of 
money himself in model farms for the purpose of showing 
how things could be done. But while commercial, agricul- 
tural, and manufacturing prosperity increased in France, 



228 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

SO also did the cost of living ; and the cry, " Put money in 
thy purse ! " found its echo in the hearts of all men in all 
classes of society. Speculation of every kind ran rampant, 
and by the year 1869 the cost of the improvements in Paris 
alone became greater than France could patiently bear. 

Personally, Louis Napoleon had strong sympathy with the 
working-classes, and was always seeking to benefit them. 
He favored co-operative societies ; he was planning, when 
he fell, a system of state annuities to disabled or to aged 
workmen. He abolished passports between France and 
England, and also the French workman's character-book, 
or livret, which by law he had been compelled to have 
always at hand. 

In the midst of the emperor's other perplexities, there 
came, during the first days of 1870, a most damaging oc- 
currence connected with his own family, — an occurrence 
with which the emperor had no more to do than Louis 
Philippe had had with the Praslin murder ; but it helped to 
impair the remaining prestige which clung to the name of 
Bonaparte. 

Prince Pierre Bonaparte, grandson of Lucien, was a dis- 
solute and irregular character. His cousin, the emperor, 
had repeatedly paid his debts and given him, as he did to 
every one connected with the name of Bonaparte, large 
sums of money. At last Prince Pierre's conduct grew 
so bad that this help ceased. Then he threatened his 
cousin ; but the emperor would not even buy an estate he 
owned in Corsica. Prince Pierre went back, therefore, to 
the cradle of his family, and there got into a fierce quarrel 
with an opposition member of the Chamber of Deputies. 
The deputy, like a true Corsican, nourished revenge. He 
waited till he went up to Paris, and there laid his grie- 
vances against the emperor's cousin before his fellow de- 
puties of the opposition. They at once made it a party 
affair. On Jan. 2, 1870, — the day the reformed Chamber of 
Deputies was opened, — two journalists of Paris, M. de Tour- 
vielle and M. Victor Noir, went armed to Pierre Bonaparte's 
house at Auteuil to carry him a challenge. They found the 



AT THE SUMMIT OF PROSPERITY. 229 

prince in a room where he kept a curious collection of 
weapons. He was a coarse man, with an ungovernable 
temper. High words were exchanged. Victor Noir 
slapped the prince in the face, and the prince, seizing a 
pistol, shot him dead. He then turned on M. de Tour- 
vielle ; but the latter had time to draw a sword from his 
sword-cane, and stood armed. Victor Noir's funeral was 
made the occasion of an immense republican demonstra- 
tion, and M. Rochefort reviled the emperor and all his 
family in the newspaper he edited, "La Lanterne," calling 
upon Frenchmen to make an end of the Bonapartes. 

Prince Pierre was tried for murder, and acquitted ; 
Rochefort was tried for seditious libel, and condemned. 
It was an ominous opening for the new Chamber. The 
emperor had been most anxious that it should contain no 
deputies violently opposed to his new policy, and the elec- 
tions had been scandalously manipulated in the interest of 
his dynasty. 

Thiers complained bitterly to an Englishman, who visited 
him, of the undisguised tampering with voters in this elec- 
tion. He said, — 

" The Government pretends to believe in a Chamber elected 
by universal suffrage, and yet dares not trust the votes of the 
electors ; but mark my words, this tampering with an election 
is for the last time. What will succeed the Empire, I know not. 
God grant it may not be our country's ruin ! But the state of 
things under which we live cannot last long. It is incumbent 
on honest men to lay before the emperor the state of the coun- 
try, which his ministers do their best to keep from him. For a 
long time I kept silent, — it was no use to knock one's head 
against a wall ; but now we have revolution staring us in the 
face, as the alternative with the Empire." 

As the little man said this^ we are told that the fire in his 
eyes gleamed through his spectacles ; and as he walked about 
the room, he seemed to grow taller and taller.^ 

The new constitutional ministry, into whose hands the 

1 Blackwood's Magazine. 



230 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

emperor proposed to resign despotic power and to rule 
thenceforward as constitutional sovereign, had for its chief 
M. Emile Ollivier ; Marshal Le Boeuf (made marshal on the 
field of Magenta) was the Minister of War. 

The debates in the Chamber were all stormy. The oppo- 
sition might not be numerous, but it was fierce and deter- 
mined. It scoffed at the idea of France being free when 
elections were tampered with to sustain the Government ; 
and finally things came to such a pass that the emperor re- 
solved to play again his trump- card, and to call a plebiscite 
to say whether the French people approved of him and 
wished to continue his dynasty. They were to vote simply 
Yes or No. 

There was not such open tampering this time with the vote 
as there had been in the election of the deputies, but all 
kinds of Government influences were brought to bear on 
prefects, maires, and other official personages, especially in 
the villages. The result was that 7,250,000 Frenchmen 
voted Yes, and one and a half million. No. But to the 
emperor's intense surprise and mortification, and in spite 
of all precautions, there were 42,000 Noes from the 
army. It was a terrible discovery to the emperor that 
there was disaffection among his soldiers. Promotion, 
many men believed, had for some years been distributed 
through favoritism. The men had little confidence in their 
officers, the officers complained loudly of their men. A 
dashing exploit in Algeria made up for irregularities of dis- 
cipline. Even the staff officers were deficient in geography, 
and the stories that afterwards came to light of the way in 
which the War Department collected worthless stores, while 
serviceable ones existed only on paper, seem almost in- 
credible. Yet when war was declared, Emile Ollivier 
said that he went into it with a light heart, and Marshal Le 
Boeuf was reported to have told the emperor that he would 
not find so much as one button missing on his soldiers' 
gaiters. 

The discovery that the army was not to be depended on, 
and needed a war of glory to put it in good humor with itself 



AT THE SUMMIT OF PROSPERITY. 23 I 

and with its emperor, decided Napoleon III. to enter pre- 
cipitately into the Franco-Prussian war while he still had 
health enough to share in it. Besides this, a struggle with 
Germany was inevitable, and he dared not leave it to his 
successor. Then, too, if successful, — and he never doubted 
of success, — all opposition at home would be crushed, and 
the prestige of his dynasty would be doubled, especially if 
he could, by a brilliant campaign, give France the frontier of 
the Rhine, at least to the borders of Belgium. This would 
indeed be a glorious crowning of his reign. 

He believed in himself, he beheved in his star, he be- 
lieved in his own generalship, he believed that his army 
was ready (though his army and navy never had been ready 
for any previous campaign), and he believed, truly enough, 
that the prospect of glory, aggrandizement, and success 
would be popular in France. 

Spain was at that time in want of a king. Several princes 
were proposed, and the most acceptable owq would have 
been the Due de Montpensier; but Napoleon III., who 
dreaded the rivalry of the Orleans family, gave the Spaniards 
to understand that he would never consent to see a prince 
of that family upon the Spanish throne. Then the Spaniards 
took the matter into their own hands, and possibly stimulated 
by a wish to make a choice disagreeable to the French em- 
peror, selected a prince of the Prussian royal family, Prince 
Leopold of Hohenzollern. The Emperor Napoleon ob- 
jected at once. To have Prussia on the- eastern frontier of 
France, and Prussian influence beyond the Pyrenees, was 
worse in his eyes than the selection of Montpensier ; and it 
was certainly a matter for diplomatic consideration. M. 
Benedetti, the French minister at Berlin, was instructed to 
take a very haughty tone with the king of Prussia, and to 
say that if he permitted Prince Leopold to accept the 
Spanish crown, it would be a cause of war between France 
and Prussia. The king of Prussia rephed substantially that 
he would not be threatened, and would leave Prince Leo- 
pold to do as he pleased. Prompted, however, no doubt, 
by his sovereign, Prince Leopold declined the Spanish 



232 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

throne. This was intimated to M. Benedetti, and here the 
matter might have come to an end. But the Emperor 
Napoleon, anxious for a casus belli, chose to think that 
the king of Prussia, in making his announcement to his 
ambassador, had not been sufficiently civil. 

A cabinet council was held at the Tuileries. The em- 
press was now admitted to cabinet councils, that she might 
be prepared for a regency that before long might arrive. 
She and Marshal Le Boeuf were vehement for war. The 
populace, proud of their fine army, shouted with one voice, 
" A Berlin 1 " and on July 19, 1870, war was declared. 

Let us relieve the sad closing of this chapter, which 
began so auspiciously with the emperor and empress in 
the height of their prosperity, by telling of an expedition 
in which the glory of the empress as a royal lady 
culminated. 

The Suez Canal being completed, its opening was to be 
made an international affair of great importance. The 
work was the work of French engineers, led by M. Ferdi- 
nand de Lesseps, in every way a most remarkable man. 

England looked coldly on the enterprise. To use the 
vulgar phrase both literally and metaphorically, she " took 
no stock " in the Suez Canal, and she sent no royal person- 
age, nor other representative to the opening ceremonies; 
the only Englishman of official rank who was present was 
an admiral, whose flag- ship was in the harbor of Port Said. 

The Emperor Napoleon was wholly unable to leave 
France at a time so critical; but he sent his fair young 
empress in his stead. He stayed at Saint-Cloud, and took 
advantage of her absence to submit to a severe surgical 
operation. The empress went first to Constantinople, 
where Sultan Abdul Aziz gave a beautiful fete in her 
honor, at which she appeared, lovely and all glorious, in 
amber satin and diamonds. She afterwards proceeded to 
Egypt as the guest of the khedive, entering Port Said 
Nov. 16, 1869, and returning to Paris on the 5th of 
December. 

The opening of the canal across the isthmus of Suez, 




\%r 



I 



EMFJ^ESS EUGENIE. 



AT THE SUMMIT OF PROSPERITY. 



233 



which was in a manner to unite the Eastern with the 
Western world, caused the eyes of all Christendom to be 
fixed on Egypt, — the venerable great-grandmother of civi- 
lization. The great work had been completed, in spite of 
Lord Palmerston's sincere conviction, which he lost no 
opportunity of proclaiming to the world, that it was impos- 
sible to connect the Red Sea with the Mediterranean. 
The sea-level, he said, was not the same in the two seas, 
so that the embankments could not be sustained, and drift- 
sands from the desert would fill the work up rapidly from 
day to day. Ismail Pasha, the khedive of Egypt, had 
made the tour of Europe, inviting everybody to the open- 
ing, from kings and kaisers, empresses and queens, down to 
members of chambers of commerce and marine insurance 
companies. Great numbers were to be present, and the 
Empress Eugenie was to be the Cleopatra of the occasion. 
But suddenly the khedive was threatened with a serious dis- 
appointment : the sultan, his suzerain, wanted to join in the 
festivities; and if he were present, he must be the chief 
personage, the khedive would be thrust into a vassal's 
place, and all his glory, all his pleasure in his fete, would be 
gone. 

The ancient Egyptians, whose attention was much ab- 
sorbed in waterworks and means of irrigation, had, as far 
back as the days of Sesostris, conceived the idea of communi- 
cation between the Nile and the Red Sea. Traces of the 
canal that they attempted still remain. Pharaoh Necho, in 
the days of the Prophet Jeremiah, revived the project. 
Darius and one of the Ptolemies completed the work, but 
when Egypt sank back into semi- barbarism, the canal was 
neglected and forgotten. It does not appear, however, that 
the Pharaohs ever thought of connecting the Red Sea with 
the Mediterranean. The canal of Sesostris and of Pharaoh 
Necho was a purely local affair, affecting Egyptian com- 
merce alone. 

Some modern Egyptian engineers seem first to have 
conceived the project of a Suez canal ; but the man who 
accomplished it was the engineer and statesman, M. de 



234 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Lesseps. In spite of all manner of discouragements, he 
brought the canal to completion, supported throughout by 
the influence and authority of the khedive. The first 
thing to be done was to supply the laborers and the new 
town of Ismailia with drinking water, by means of a narrow 
freshwater canal from the Nile. Till then all fresh water 
had been brought in tanks from Cairo. Next, a town — 
called Port Said, after the khedive who had first favored 
the plan of the canal — was built on the Mediterranean. 
The canal was to run a straight southerly course to Suez. 
At Ismailia, the new city, it would connect with the rail- 
road to Cairo; between Port Said and Ismailia it would 
pass through two swampy lakes. 

In seven years Port Said became a town of ten thousand 
inhabitants. The total length of the canal is about ninety 
miles, but more than half of it passes through the lakes, which 
had to be dredged. The width of the canal is a little over 
one hundred yards, its depth twenty-six feet. About sixty 
millions of dollars were expended on its construction and 
the preliminary works that it entailed, — these last all 
tending to the benefit and prosperity of Egypt. 

The grand opening took place Nov. i6, 1869. The 
sultan was not present ; he had been persuaded out of 
his fancy to see the sight, and the khedive was left in peace 
as master of ceremonies. The Emperor Francis Joseph of 
Austria was there in his yacht, and the Empress Eugenie, 
the " bright particular star " of the occasion, was on 
board the French war-steamer " L'Aigle." As " L'Aigle " 
steamed slowly into the crowded port, all the bands 
played, — 

'* Partant pour la Syrie, 
Le brave et jeune Dunois," 

the air of which had been composed by Queen Hortense, 
the mother of the emperor, so that it was dignified during 
his reign into a national air. 

That afternoon there was a reHgious ceremony, which 
all the crowned heads and other great personages were 



AT THE SUMMIT OF PROSPERITY. 235 

expected to attend. Two of the sovereigns or heirs-apparent 
present were Roman Catholics, one was a Protestant, and 
one a Mohammedan. The Crescent and the Cross for the 
first time overshadowed worshippers joining in one com- 
mon prayer. The empress appeared, leaning on the arm 
of the Emperor of Austria. She wore a short pale gray 
silk, with deep white Brussels lace arranged in paniers and 
flounces. Her hat and veil were black, and round her 
throat was a black velvet ribbon. The Mohammedan 
pontiff who officiated on the occasion was understood to be 
a man of extraordinary sanctity, brought from a great dis- 
tance to lend solemnity to the occasion. He was followed 
by the chaplain of the empress, a stout, handsome Hun- 
garian prelate named M. Bauer.^ 

Even up to the morning of November 17, when the passage 
of the fleet was to be made through the canal, there were 
persons at Port Said who doubted if it would get through. 
The ships-of-war had been directed to enter the canal 
first, and there was to be between each ship an interval of 
a quarter of an hour. They were ordered to steam at the 
rate of five miles an hour. '' L'Aigle " entered first. " La 
Pelouse," another French ship, had the greatest draught of 
water ; namely, eighteen or nineteen feet. 

The scenery from the Suez Canal is not interesting ; a 
wide expanse of water stretches upon either side, the banks 
of the canal being the only land visible. But as evening 
fell, and the sun sank, a rich purple light, with its warm 
tones, overspread everything, until the moon rose, touching 
the waters with her silvery sheen. Before this, however, 
the foremost ships in the procession had safely reached 
Ismailia. There the khedive had erected a new palace in 
which to review his guests. They numbered about six 
thousand, and the behavior of many of them did Uttle credit 
to civilization. 

The khedive had arranged an exhibition of Arab horse- 
manship and of throwing the jei-eed ; but the sand was so 

1 Blackwood's Magazine. 



236 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

deep that the horses could not show themselves to advan- 
tage. The empress, wearing a large leghorn hat and yellow 
veil, rode on a camel ; and when an Italian in the crowd 
shouted to her roughly, " Lean back, or you will fall off, 
heels over head," the graceful dignity with which she 
smiled, and accepted the advice, won the hearts of all 
beholders. 

That night a great ball was given by the khedive in his 
new palace. " It was impossible," says an English gentle- 
man, " to overrate the gracious influence of the empress's 
presence. The occasion, great as it was, would have 
lost its romance if she had not been there. She it was 
who raised the spirit of chivalry, subdued the spirit of 
strife, enmity, and intrigue among rival men, and over 
commerce, science, and avarice spread the gauzy hues 
of poetry." 

Alas ! poor empress. Ten months later, she was hurrying 
as a fugitive on board an English yacht on her way into 
exile, having passed through anxieties and griefs that had 
streaked her hair with gray. Even in the midst of her 
personal triumphs in the East, there were clouds on 
the horizon of her life which she could see darkening 
and increasing. A few days before the fetes of the open- 
ing of the canal^ she writes to her husband, who, though 
unfit for exertion, had gone into Paris on some state 
occasion, — 

" I was very anxious about you yesterday, thinking of you in 
Paris without me ; but I see by your telegram that everything 
passed off well. When we observe other nations, we can better 
perceive the injustice of our own. I think, however, in spite of 
all, that you must not be discouraged, but continue in the course 
you have inaugurated. It is right to keep faith touching con- 
cessions that have been granted. I hope that your speech to 
the Chamber will be in this spirit. The more strength may be 
wanted in the future, the more important it is to prove to the 
country that we act upon ideas, and not only on expedients. 
I speak thus while far away, and ignorant of what has passed 
since my departure, but I am thoroughly convinced that strength 



AT THE SUMMIT OF PROSPERITY. 237 

lies in the orderly sequence of ideas. I do not like surprises, 
and I am persuaded that a coup d'etat cannot be made twice in 
one reign. I am talking in the dark, and to one already of my 
opinion, and who knows more than I can know ; but I must say 
something, if only to prove, what you know, that my heart is 
with you both, and that if in calm days my spirit loves to roam 
in space, it is with you both I love to be in times of care or 
trouble." 



CHAPTER XII. 

PARIS IN 1870: JULY, AUGUST, AND SEPTEMBER. 

AS soon as relations became " strained " between 
France and Germany, according to the term used 
in diplomacy, the king of Prussia ordered home all his 
subjects who had found employment in France, especially 
those in Alsace and Lorraine.^ Long before this, those 
provinces had been overrun with photographers, pedlers, 
and traveUing workmen, commissioned to make themselves 
fully acquainted with the roads, the by-paths, the resources 
of the villages, and the character of the rural officials. In 
the case of France, however, though all the reports con- 
cerning military stores looked well on paper, the old guns 
mounted on the frontier fortresses were worthless, and the 
organization of the army was so imperfect that scarcely 
more than two hundred thousand troops could be sent to 
defend the French frontier from Switzerland to Luxem- 
burg ; while Germany, with an army that could be mobi- 
lized in eleven days, was ready by the ist of August to 
pour five hundred thousand men across the Rhine. The 
emperor placed great reliance on his mitrailleuses, — a new 
engine of war that would fire a volley of musketry at once, 
but which, though horribly murderous, has not proved 
of great value in actual warfare. Towards the Rhine were 
hurried soldiers, recruits, cannon, horses, artillery, ammu- 
nition, wagons full of biscuit and all manner of munitions 
of war. The roads between Strasburg and Belfort were 
blocked up, and in the disorder nobody seemed to know 
what should be done. Every one was trying to get 

^ Erckmann-Chatrian, La Plebiscite. 



PARIS IN 1870. 239 

orders. The telegraph hnes were reserved for the Gov- 
ernment. Quartermasters were roaming about in search of 
their depots, colonels were looking for their regiments, 
generals for their brigades or divisions. There were 
loud outcries for salt, sugar, coffee, bacon, and bridles. 
Maps of Germany as far as the shores of the Baltic were 
being issued to soldiers who, alas ! were never to pass 
their own frontier. But while this was the situation near 
the seat of war, in other parts of France the scene was 
different, especially in Brest and other seaports. These 
towns were crowded with soldiers and sailors ; the streets 
were filled with half-drunken recruits bawling patriotic 
sentiments in tipsy songs. And now, for the first time 
since the Empire came into existence, might be heard the 
unaccustomed strains of the " Marseillaise." It had been 
long suppressed in France ; but when war became immi- 
nent, it was encouraged for the purpose of exciting military 
ardor. 

Every day in the provincial towns the war fever grew 
fiercer. The bugle sounded incessantly in the streets 
of any place where there were troops in garrison. Regi- 
ment followed regiment on its way into Paris, changing 
quarters or marching to depots to receive equipments. 
Orderlies galloped madly about, and heavy ammunition 
wagons lumbered noisily over the pavements. Everybody 
shouted " A Berlin," and took up the chorus of the " Mar- 
seillaise." The post-offices and telegraph-offices were 
crowded with soldiers openly dictating their messages to 
patient officials who put them into shape, and it was said 
that nearly every telegram contained the words, " Please 
send me . . ." Alas, poor fellows ! it is probable that 
nothing sent them in reply was ever received.-^ 

Parisians or residents in Paris all believed at that time 
in the prestige of the French army ; only here and there 
a German exile muttered in his beard something about 
Sadowa. 

On July 27 all Paris assembled on the Boulevards to see 

1 I am indebted for much in this chapter to a private journal. 



240 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

the Garde Imperiale take its departure for the frontier. 
This Imperial Guard was a choice corps created by Na- 
poleon III. at the outset of the Crimean War. It was a 
force numbering nominally twenty thousand infantry and 
three thousand cavalry. It was a very popular corps, and 
the war with Germany was popular; consequently the 
march from its barracks to the railroad station was one 
continued triumph. At every halt the Parisians pressed 
into the ranks with gifts of money, wine, and cigars. 
"Vive I'armee ! " shouted the multitude. "A Berlin!" 
responded the troops ; and now and then, as the bands 
struck up the "Marseillaise," the population and the troops 
burst out in chorus with the solemn, spirit-stirring words. 

At the head of this brilliant host rode Marshal Le Boeuf, 
who was minister of war and military tutor to the Prince 
Imperial. After the departure of the main body of the 
corps, large detachments of cavalry and artillery which be- 
longed to it were expected to follow ; but they remained 
behind in the provinces, because Lyons, Marseilles, and 
Algeria, all centres of the revolutionary spirit, could not, 
it was found, be left without armed protection. Therefore 
only a portion of the crack corps of the French army went 
forward to the frontier, — a fact never suspected by the 
public until events, a few weeks later, made it known. 

Paris was jubilant. The theatres especially became 
centres of patriotic demonstrations. At the Grand Opera 
House, Auber's " Massaniello " (called in France the 
" Muette de Portici ") was announced. For many years its 
performance had been interdicted under the Second Em- 
pire, the story being one of heroic revolt. The time had 
come, however, when its ardent patriotism entitled it to 
resuscitation. Faure, the most remarkable baritone singer 
of the period, suddenly, at the beginning of the second 
act, which opens with a chorus of fishermen inciting each 
other to resist oppression, appeared upon the stage bear- 
ing the French flag. The chorus ranged themselves to 
right and left as he strode forward and waved the tricolor 
above the footlights. The house broke into wild uproar, 



PARIS IN 1870. 



241 



cheer after cheer rose for the flag, for the singer, for 
France. 

" The violence of the applause," says one who was present, 
"continued until all were breathless; then a sudden silence 
preceded the great event of the evening. In clear, firm tones, 
Faure launched forth the first notes of the ' Marseillaise; ' and 
as the first verse ended, he bounded forward, and unfurling the 
flag to its full length and breadth, he waved it high above his 
head as he electrified the audience with the cry, '■ Aux armes, 
citoyens ! ' and subsequently, when in the last verse he sank 
upon one knee, and folding the standard to his heart, raised 
his eyes towards heaven, he drew all hearts with him ; tears 
flowed, hand grasped hand, and deeply solemn was the intona- 
tion of the volunteer chorus following the call to arms! . . 

" The month of July was drawing to a close when the emperor 
took his departure for Metz, where he was to assume the post 
of generalissimo. With him went gayly the young Prince 
Imperial, then fourteen years old. Their starting-point was 
the small rustic summer-house in the park of Saint-Cloud, the 
termination of a miniature branch railroad connecting with the 
great lines of travel. There the father and son parted from 
the empress, who removed the same day to the Tuileries, where 
she administered the imperial government under the title of 
empress-regent. 

" It would have been injudicious for the emperor at this 
time to risk a public departure from Paris. The Parisians 
were so full of confidence and enthusiasm that he might have 
received an inconvenient ovation in advance." 

Skirmishing had been going on along the frontier be- 
tween the French and German outposts since July 21. 
On August 2 the campaign began in earnest. After 
luncheon on that day, the emperor and the Prince Imperial 
set out by rail from Metz, and returned to Metz to dinner, 
having invaded German territory and opened the war. 
They had alighted at Forbach, and proceeded thence to 
make a reconnaissance into the enemy's territory near 
Saarbriick, — a small town of two thousand inhabitants, 
where, strange to say, an International Peace Congress had 
held its session not many months before. This place had 
an ordinary frontier garrison, and lay two and a half miles 

16 



242 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

beyond the boundary of France. General Frossard, under 
the emperor's direction and supervision, led on his men 
to attack the place. The first gun was fired by the Prince 
Imperial, who here, as his father*s telegram that night 
reported to the empress, received his " baptism of fire." 
The garrison returned the fire, and then, having lost two 
officers and seventy-two men, it retired, leaving the French 
in possession of the heights above the town. Poor Prince 
Imperial I Some harsh lines concerning his first exploit 
were published in the London " Spectator : " — 

*^* How jolly, papa ? how funny t 

How the blue men tumble about! 
Huzza { there 's a fellow's head off, — 

How the dark red blood spouts out S 
And look, what a jolly bonfire ! — 

Wants nothing but colored light I 
Oh, papa, burn a lot of cities, 

And burn the next one at night \ " 
" ' Yes, child, it h operatic ; 

But don't forget, in your glee. 
That for your sake this play is playing. 

That you may be worthy of me. 
They baptized you in Jordan water, — 

Baptized as a Christian, I mean, — 
But you come of the race of Csesar, 

And thus have their baptisms been. 
Baptized in true Csesar fashion. 

Remember, through all your years, 
That the font was a burning city, 
And the water was widows' tears.' " 

When these lines were written, how little could any man 
have foreseen the fate of the poor lad, lying bloody and 
stark on a hillside of South Africa, deserted by his com- 
rades, and above all by a degenerate descendant of Sir 
Walter Raleigh, who should have risked his life to defend 
his charge 1 

The day after the attack on Saarbriick compact masses of 
Germans were moving across the frontier into France, and 
on llie next day (August 4) , a division of MacMahon's army 
corps was surprised at Wissembourg. while their comman- 



PARIS IN 1870. 243 

der was at Metz in conference with the emperor. The 
French troops were cut to pieces, and the fugitives spread 
themselves all over the country. The battle had been 
fought on ground covered with vineyards, and the move- 
ments of the French cavalry had been impeded by the 
vines. In this battle the French were without artillery, but 
they took eight cannon from the enemy. The Prussians, 
however, being speedily reinforced, recovered their advan- 
tage and gained a complete victory. Wissembourg, a small 
town in Alsace, was bombarded and set on fire. There 
seemed no officer among the defeated French to restore 
order. They had never anticipated such a rout, and were, 
especially the cavalry, utterly demoralized. 

The French army was divided into seven army corps, the 
German into twelve. Each German army corps was greatly 
stronger in men, and incomparably better officered and 
equipped, than the French. The Germans began the war 
with nearly a million men ; the French with little more than 
two hundred thousand on the frontier, though their army 
was five hundred thousand strong on the official records. 
The habit of the War Office had been to let rich men who 
were drawn for the conscription pay four hundred francs 
for a substitute, which substitute was seldom purchased, the 
money going into the pockets of dishonest officials. 

The two hundred thousand French were stretched in a 
thin line from Belgium to the mountains of Dauphin6. A 
German army corps could break this line at almost any 
point ; and throughout the whole campaign the French suf- 
fered from the lack of reliable information as to the move- 
ments of the enemy. 

On August 6, two days after the defeat at Wissembourg, 
the battle of Worth, or Reichshofen, was fought between 
the German corps (Tarmee under the Prussian Crown 
Prince and the corps of MacMahon, which was completely 
defeated, and only enabled to leave the field of battle in 
retreat rather than rout, by brilliant charges of cavalry. 
The French lost six mitrailleuses, thirty guns, and four 
thousand unwounded prisoners. On the same day the Ger- 



244 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, 

man reserves retook Saarbriick, and put to flight General 
Frossard's division. After these reverses Napoleon III. 
proposed to retreat on Paris and to cover the capital. This 
also was the counsel of MacMahon; but the empress-re- 
gent opposed it strongly, considering it a movement that 
must prove fatal to the dynasty. She even refused to re- 
ceive back her son. And indeed it did not seem unlikely 
that the good people of Paris, who ten days before had 
cheered clamorously their beloved emperor, might have 
torn him in pieces, had he come back to them after such 
a succession of disasters. 

On the 7th of August, the very day after the battle of 
Worth, while MacMahon was retreating before the victorious 
army of the Prussian Crown Prince, the Parisians were made 
victims of an extraordinary deception. A great battle was 
reported, in which the Crown Prince had been made pris- 
oner, together with twenty-six thousand of his men. 

All Paris turned into the streets to exult over this vic- 
tory ; every one rushed in the direction of the Bourse, 
where details of the great victory were said to have been 
posted. In every street, from every house, people were 
summoned to hang out flags and banners. An excited 
crowd filled up the Bourse, many men clinging to the 
railings, all shouting, singing, and embracing each other. 
No one for a long time had any clear idea what the rejoic- 
ing was about, yet the crowd went on shouting and singing 
choruses, waving hats, and reiterating the " Marseillaise." 
The carriage of Madame Marie Sasse, the prima donna, 
who was on her way to a rehearsal at the Grand Opera 
House, was stopped, and she was requested to sing the 
'' Marseillaise." She stood up on the seat of her carriage 
and complied at once. "There was profound silence," 
wrote a gentleman who was in the crowd, " when she gave 
the first notes of the ' Marseillaise ; ' but all Paris seemed to 
take up the chorus after each stanza. There was uproarious 
applause. The last verse was even more moving than when 
Faure had sung it, on account of the novelty of the sur- 
roundings and the spontaneous feeling of the people. There 



PARIS IN 1870, 245 

were real tears in the singer's eyes, and her voice trembled 
with genuine emotion as she came to the thrilling appeal to 
Liberie:' 

At the same moment Capoul also was singing the '' Mar- 
seillaise " in another street, and in the Rue Richelieu the 
mob, having stopped a beer cart and borrowed some glasses 
from a restaurant, were drinking healths to the army and 
the emperor. 

" All this time," says the American, who mingled in the 
crowd and shouted with the rest in his excitement, "it never 
occurred to me to doubt the accuracy of the news that had so 
stirred up Paris ; for the newspapers on the preceding days had 
prepared us to expect something of the kind. All at once, upon 
the Boulevard, I was aware of a violent altercation going on be- 
tween a respectable-looking man and a number of infuriated 
bystanders. He seemed to be insisting that the whole story of 
the victory was untrue, and tliat despatches had been received 
announcing heavy disasters. I saw that unlucky citizen hustled 
about, and finally collared and led off by a policeman, the peo- 
ple pursuing him with cries of ' Prussian ! ' But some time later 
in the day some persons in a cab drove down the Boulevards 
with a white banner, inscribed : The author of the false 
NEWS IS ARRESTED ! This, however, was not the case, for the 
news was never traced to any person." 

The mob as soon as it began to believe that it had been 
the victim of some stockjobbing operators, rushed to the 
Bourse, determined to pull everything to pieces; but the 
military were there beforehand, and it had to content 
itself with requiring all householders to pull down the 
flags which two hours before it had insisted must be hung 
out. 

The Parisians were not easily appeased after this cruel 
deception, and took their revenge by spreading damaging 
reports about the Government of the regency, especially 
accusing the ministers of basely suppressing bulletins from 
the army, that they might gamble on the stock-exchange. 
The chief of the cabinet, Emile Ollivier, was very nearly 
mobbed ; but he pacified the people by a speech made 
from the balcony of his residence. He was at the time 



246 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

really unaware that more than one defeat had been 
sustained. 

Hour after hour alarming reports kept coming in ; and 
at last, on August 9, the fatal news of three successive de- 
feats was posted all over the city. Soon an ominous mes- 
sage, sent by Napoleon III., revealed the full horror of the 
situation : '' Hasten preparations for the defence of Paris." 

The greatest dismay prevailed. The Chambers were 
summoned to an evening session. The legislators were 
guarded by cavalry from the mob which surged round the 
Chamber. Ollivier and his cabinet were forced to resign, 
and a new cabinet was hastily installed in office, calling 
itself the Ministry of National Defence. Its head was 
Count Montauban, a man seventy- five years old, who had 
gained the title of Count Palikao by his notorious cam- 
paign in China in i860, when he sacked the summer pal- 
ace at Pekin. M. Thiers had pronounced him far more of 
a soldier than a statesman. He was in command of the 
fourth army corps at Lyons when summoned by the em- 
press-regent to take up the reins of government ; but in 
the course of the unvaried succession of misfortunes which 
made up the history of the French arms during the month 
of August, the public statements of Palikao proved as un- 
reliable as those of his predecessor. His favorite way of 
meeting inquiries was to say oracularly : " If Paris knew 
what I know, the city would be illuminated." 

Confidence increased after the empress-regent had pro- 
claimed a levee en masse. There were no arms for those 
who responded to the call, and most of them had to be 
sent back to their homes ; but it was considered certain 
that the mere idea of a general call to arms would intimi- 
date the Prussians. Indeed, there was a popular delusion, 
shared even by foreigners, that the Prussian soldiery, on 
their march to Paris, would be cut to pieces by the peas- 
antry. The conduct of the peasantry proved exactly the 
reverse of belligerent. The penalties inflicted by the in- 
vaders for irregular warfare, and the profits made by indi- 
viduals who remained neutral, were cleverly calculated to 



PARIS IN 1S70. 247 

render the peasantry, not only harmless, but actually useful 
to the enemy. 

Meantime the French were rapidly evacuating Alsace, 
and preparing to make their stand on the Moselle. Gen- 
eral Failly's corps of thirty thousand men, which had failed 
to come up in time to help MacMahon at Worth, were in 
full retreat, without exchanging a shot with the enemy. 

The Germans continued to march steadily on. The 
country was systematically requisitioned for supplies. The 
rnat're or other high official of each village was informed 
twenty-four hours beforehand how many men he was ex- 
pected to provide with rations ; namely, to each man daily, 
i| lb. bread, i lb. meat, i lb. coffee, five cigars, or their 
equivalent in tobacco, a pint of wine or a quart of beer, 
and horse feed. If these demands were not complied 
with, he was assured that the village would be set on fire ; 
and after a few examples had been made, the villagers 
became so intimidated that they furnished all that was 
required of them. 

Here is a description of one night's work done by a 
Prussian general. It is taken from a work by Erckmann- 
Chartrian ; ^ but those graphic writers took all their descrip- 
tions from the mouths of Alsatian peasants who had been 
eye-witnesses of the scenes which they described : — 

"The first thing the Prussian commander did on entering 
his chamber in a cottage where he had quarters for the night, 
was to make three or four soldiers turn out every article of furni- 
ture. Then he spread out on the floor an enormous map of the 
country. He took off his boots and lay down on the map flat on 
his stomach. Then he called in six or seven officers, all captains 
or lieutenants. Each man pulled out a small map. The gen- 
eral called to one of them by name ; ' Have you got the road 
from here to Metting ? ' ' Yes, General.' ' Name all the places 
between here and there-' Then the officer, without hesitation, 
told the names of all the villages, farms, streams, bridges, and 
woods, the turnings of the roads, the very cow-paths. The 
general followed him on the large map with his finger. ' That 's 

1 La Plebiscite. 



248 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

all right. Take twenty men and go as far as St. Jean by such 
a road. You will reconnoitre. If you want any assistance, 
send me word.' And so on, one by one, to all the others." 

Such was the system and order of the Germans ; while 
the French, full of amazement at their own defeat, unled, 
unofficered, and disorganized, are thus described by Ed- 
mond About as he saw them entering Saverne after the 
disastrous day at Worth. 

"There were cuirassiers," he says, "without cuirasses, fusi- 
leers without guns, horsemen on foot, and infantry on horse- 
back. The roads taken by the army in its flight were blocked 
by trains of wagons loaded with provisions and clothing, and 
the woods were filled with stragglers wandering about in a pur- 
poseless way. Among the spoils of tPiat day which fell into 
the hands of the Prussians were several railroad freight-cars 
loaded with Paris confectionery ; and two days after the battle 
it was easier to obtain a hundredweight of bonbons at Forbach 
than a loaf of bread." 

All this happened in one week, from August 2 to August 
6. During this week the emperor stayed at Metz, having 
been implored by his generals to keep away from the army. 

A week later, Strasburg was besieged. MacMahon, the 
remnants of whose corps had been driven out of Alsace by 
the Crown Prince, was endeavoring to effect a juncture with 
the army corps of De Failly. 

The object of the emperor and Marshal MacMahon was 
to concentrate as large a force as possible before the very 
strongly fortified city of Metz. But as soon as they reached 
Metz the armies of General Steinmetz and Prince Frederic 
Charles, two hundred and fifty thousand strong, began to 
close in upon them. There seemed no safety but in fur- 
ther retreat. The emperor wanted to give up Lorraine, 
and to concentrate all his forces in an intrenched camp 
at Chalons ; but advices from Paris warned him that a re- 
volt would break out in the capital if he did so. He 
therefore resigned his position as commander-in-chief to 
Marshal Bazaine. He was coldly received in the camp at 



PARIS IN 1870. 249 

Chalons, and his presence with several thousand men as a 
body-guard was an impediment to mihtary operations. He 
was therefore virtually dropped out of the army, and from 
August 18, when this news was known in Paris, his author- 
ity in France was practically at an end. On the same day 
(August 18) Bazaine's army was driven into Metz after the 
battle of Gravelotte, at which battle the French, though 
defeated, distinguished themselves by their bravery. Ba- 
zaine had one hundred and seventy thousand men with 
him when he retired behind the walls of Metz. Here he 
was closely besieged till October 27, when he surrendered. 

The news that reached Paris of these events (just one 
month after the emperor had signed the declaration of war) 
not only resulted in his practical deposition, but caused a 
notoriously anti-Bonapartist general to be appointed mili- 
tary governor of the capital. Imperialism remained an 
empty name. France was without one ally, nor had the 
emperor one friend. Meantime Palikao, to appease the 
irritation of the public, continued to announce victory after 
victory. Of all his fantastic inventions, the most fantastic 
was one published immediately after Bazaine had shut him- 
self up with his army in Metz. A despatch was published, 
and universally accepted with confidence and enthusiasm, 
announcing that three German army corps had been over- 
thrown at the Quarries of Jaumont. There are no quarries 
at Jaumont, there were no Prussians anywhere near the 
spot, and none had been defeated ; but the Parisians were 
well satisfied. 

After the first panic caused by the despatch that Paris 
must prepare for defence, means were taken for provisioning 
the city. Clement Duvernois, an ex-radical, an ex-Bona- 
partist, and one of the members of the Ministry of Defence, 
gave ignorant and reckless orders for supplies, which, in 
spite of the gravity of the situation, amused the Parisians 
immensely. 

Droves of cattle passed all day along the Boulevards, 
going to be pastured in the Bois de Boulogne, where they 
were tended by Gardes Mobiles from the rural districts. 



250 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

The cattle, the camps, and the fortifications attracted crowds 
of curious spectators. 

The tap of the drum was wellnigh incessant in the city ; 
and while the enemy was drawing near, and bloody defeats 
followed each other in rapid succession, the Parisians seemed 
chiefly stimulated to write fresh libels in the newspapers, 
and to amuse each other with caricatures and satires. 

Among other foolish measures was that of ordering all 
firemen from the departments up to Paris. They remained in 
the city a week, and were then sent home. In their absurd 
and heavy uniforms, and with nothing whatever to do, the 
poor country fellows presented a miserable appearance as 
they sat in rows along the curbstones of the avenues, with 
their helmets glittering in the August sun, " looking," as 
some one remarked, " like so many rare beetles on exhibi- 
tion," the spectacle being all the more ludicrous from the 
extreme dejection of the innocent heroes. 

Troops were always on the move. The Gardes Mobiles, 
formed into companies, were not wanted anywhere. Being 
too raw as yet for active service, they were transferred from 
one barrack to another, and were drilled in the open streets 
and in the public squares. The forts absorbed a number of 
them ; others were employed as shepherds and drovers. 
The surplus was billeted on the citizens. 

Towards the end of August there began to be a notion 
that the city was full of spies, and all suspected persons 
were called Prussians. The mania for spy-hunting became 
general, and was frequently very inconvenient to Americans 
and Englishmen. Germans in Paris, many of whom had 
intermarried with the French, naturally found themselves in 
a most unhappy situation. At first they were strictly for- 
bidden to leave Paris ; then suddenly they were ordered 
away, on three days' notice, under penalty of being treated 
as prisoners of war. 

This decree affected eighty thousand persons in France, 
nearly all of whom were connected by family ties or busi- 
ness relations with the country of their adoption. The 
outcry raised by the English and German Press about this 



PARIS IN 1870. 



251 



summary expulsion procured some modification of the 
order, — not, however, without a protest from the radicals, 
who clamored for the rigor of the law. Mr. Washburne, 
the American minister, the only foreign ambassador who 
remained in Paris during the siege, had accepted the charge 
of these unhappy Germans, and heart-breaking scenes took 
place daily at the American Legation. 

Soon after the defeats in the first week in August, Mr. 
Washburne had his last interview with the Empress 
Eugenie. 

"She had evidently," he says, "passed a sleepless and agi- 
tated night, and was in great distress of mind. She at once 
began to speak of the terrible news she had received, and the 
effect it would have on the French people. I suggested to her 
that the news might not be quite so bad as was reported (alas ! 
it was far worse), and that the consequences might in the end 
be far better than present circumstances indicated. I spoke to 
her about the first battle of Bull Run, and the defeat that the 
Union army had there suffered, which had only stimulated 
the country to greater exertions. She replied : ' I only wish the 
French in these respects were like you Americans ; but I am 
afraid they will get too much discouraged, and give up too 
soon.' " 1 

All this time the '' Figaro " was publishing articles that 
held out hopes of victory and flattered the self-confidence 
of the Parisians. Marshals MacMahon and Bazaine were 
represented as leading the enemy craftily into a snare, and 
the illusion was kept up that the Germans would be cut 
to pieces by the peasantry " before they could lay their 
sacrilegious hands," said Victor Hugo, "upon the Mecca 
of civilization." Instead of this, the Crown Prince's army 
was marching in pursuit of MacMahon's forces through 
the great plains of Champagne. MacMahon had some 
design of turning back, uniting with another army corps, 
and attacking the Prussians in the rear, thus hemming in 
part of their army between himself and the troops of 
Bazaine in Metz; but he seems to have been really in 

1 Recollections of a Minister to France. 



252 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURX- 

the position of a pawn driven about a chess-board by an 
experienced player. 

Continually retreating, the emperor, who was with Mac- 
Mahon's army, at last found himself at Sedan, safe, as he 
hoped, for a brief breathing space, from the attacks of the 
two Prussian army corps which were following in his rear. 
He had been warned repeatedly that he must not return 
to Paris without a victory. "The language of reason," 
he remarked, " is no longer understood at the capital." 

On Aug. 30, 1870, the retreating French were concen- 
trated, or rather massed, under the walls of Sedan,^ in a 
valley commonly called the Sink of Givonne. The army 
consisted of twenty-nine brigades, fifteen divisions, and 
four corps d'armee, numbering ninety thousand men. 

" It was there," says Victor Hugo, " no one could guess what 
for, without order, without discipline, a mere crowd of men, 
waiting, as it seemed, to be seized by an immensely powerful 
hand. It seemed to be under no particular anxiety. The men 
who composed it knew, or thought they knew, that the enemy 
was far away. Calculating four leagues as a day's march, they 
believed the Germans to be at three days' distance. The com- 
manders, however, towards nightfall, made some preparations for 
safety. The whole army formed a sort of horse-shoe, its point 
turning towards Sedan. This disposition proved that its chiefs 
believed themselves in safety. The valley was one of those 
which the Emperor Napoleon used to call a ' bowl,' and which 
Admiral Van Tromp designated by a less polite name. No place 
could have been better calculated to shut in an army. Its very 
numbers were against it. Once in, if the way out were blocked, 
it could never leave it again. Some of the generals, — General 
Wimpfen among them — saw this, and were uneasy; but the 
little court around the emperor was confident of safety. ' At 
worst,' they said, ' we can always reach the Belgian frontier.' 
The commonest military precautions were neglected. The army 
slept soundly on the night of August 31. At the worst they 
believed themselves to have a line of retreat open to M^zieres, 
a town on the frontier of Belgium. No cavalry reconnois- 
sance was made that night ; the guards were not doubled. The 
French believed themselves more than forty miles from the 

1 Victor Hugo, Choses vues. 



PARIS IN 1870. 253 

German army. They behaved as if they thought that army 
unconcentrated and ill-informed, attempting vaguely several 
things at once, and incapable of converging on one point, 
namely, Sedan. They thought they knew that the column under 
the Prince of Saxony was marching upon Chalons, and that the 
Crown Prince of Prussia was marching upon Metz. 

" But that night, while the French army, in fancied security, 
was sleeping at Sedan, this is what was passing among the 
enemy. 

" By a quarter to two A. m. the army of the Prince of Saxony 
was on its march eastward, with orders not to fire a shot till five 
o'clock, and to make as little noise as possible. They marched 
without baggage of any kind. At the same hour another divi- 
sion of the Prussian army marched, with equal noiselessness, 
from another direction, on Sedan, while the Wiirtemburgers 
secured the road to Mezieres, thereby cutting off the possi- 
bility of a retreat into Belgium. 

" At the same moment, namely, five o'clock, — on all the hills 
around Sedan, at all points of the compass, appeared a dense, 
dark mass of German troops, with their commanders and artil- 
lery. Not one sound had been heard by the F^rench army, 
not even an order. Two hundred and fifty thousand men 
were in a circle on the heights round the Sink of Givonne. 
They had come as stealthily and as silently as serpents. They 
were there when the sun rose, and the French army were 
prisoners." 

The battle was one of artillery. The German guns 
commanded every part of the crowded valley. Indeed, 
the fight was simply a massacre. There was no hope for 
the French, though they fought bravely. Their best 
troops, the Garde Imperiale, were with Bazaine at Metz. 
Marshal MacMahon was wounded very early in the day. 
The command passed first to General Ducrot, who was 
also disabled, and afterwards to Wimpfen, a brave Afri- 
can general who had hurried from Algeria just in time 
to take part in this disastrous day. He told the em- 
peror that the only hope was for the troops to cut 
their way out of the valley ; but the army was too closely 
crowded, too disorganized, to make this practicable. One 
Zouave regiment accomplished this feat, and reached 
Belgium. 



254 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

That night — the night of September i — an aide-de- 
camp of the Emperor Napoleon carried this note to the 
camp of the king of Prussia : — 

Monsieur mon Frere, — Not having been able to die in 
midst of my troops, it only remains for me to place my sword 
in the hands of your Majesty. 

I am your Majesty's good brother, 

Napoleon. 

The king of Prussia replied, — 

Monsieur mon Fr]ere, — Regretting the circumstances un- 
der which we meet, I accept the sword of your Majesty, and I 
invite you to designate one of your officers, provided with full 
powers, to treat for the capitulation of the army which has so 
bravely fought under your command. On my side I have 
named General von Moltke for that purpose. 

I am your Majesty's good brother, 

William. 
Before Sedan, Sept. i, 1870. 

" The next morning early, a carriage containing four French 
officers drove out from Sedan, and came into the German lines. 
The carriage had an escort of only three horsemen. When it 
had reached the Germans, one of its occupants put out his head 
and asked, in German, for Count von Bismarck ? The Ger- 
mans rephed that he was at Donchery. Thither the carriage 
dashed away. It contained the French emperor." 

With Napoleon III. fell not only his own reputation 
as a ruler, but the glory of his uncle and the prestige of 
his name. 

The fallen emperor and Bismarck met in a httle house 
upon the banks of the Meuse. Chairs were brought 
out, and they talked in the open air. It was a glorious 
autumn morning. The emperor looked care-worn, as 
well he might. He wished to see the king of Prussia 
before the articles of capitulation were drawn up : but 
King Wilham declined the interview. When the' capit- 
ulation was signed, however, he drove over to visit the 



PARIS IN 1870. 255 

captive emperor at a chateau where the latter had taken 
refuge. 

Their interview was private ; only the two sovereigns 
were present. The French emperor afterwards expressed 
to the Crown Prince of Prussia his deep sense of the 
courtesy shown him. He was desirous of passing as 
unnoticed as possible through French territory, where, in- 
deed, exasperation against him, as the first cause of the 
misfortunes of France, was so great that his life would 
have been in peril. The next day he proceeded to the 
beautiful palace at Cassel called Wilhelmshohe, or Wil- 
liam's Rest. It had been built at ruinous expense by 
Jerome Bonaparte while king of Westphalia, and was then 
called Napoleon's Rest. 

Every consideration that the German royal family could 
show their former friend and gracious host was shown to 
Louis Napoleon. This told against him with the French. 
Was the man who had led them into such misfortunes 
to be honored and comforted while they were suffering 
the consequences of his selfishness, recklessness, negli- 
gence, and incapacity ? 

Thus eighty thousand men capitulated at Sedan, and 
were marched as prisoners into Germany; one hundred 
and seventy-five thousand French soldiers remained shut 
up in Metz, besides a few thousands more in Strasburg, 
Phalsbourg, Toul, and Belfort. But the road was open to 
Paris, and thither the various German armies marched, 
leaving the Landwehr, which could not be ordered to 
serve beyond the limits of Germany, to hold Alsace and 
Lorraine, already considered a part of the Fatherland. 
The Prussians did not reach Paris till September 19, two 
weeks after the surrender at Sedan, — which seemed rather 
a lull in the military operations of a war in which so 
much had occurred during one short month. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



THE SIEGE OF PARIS. 



THOUGH the surrender of the emperor and his army 
at Sedan took place on September 2, nothing what- 
ever was known of it by the Parisian public until the even- 
ing of September 4, when a reporter arrived at the office of 
the " Gaulois " with a Belgian newspaper in his pocket. 
The " Gaulois " dared not be the first sheet to publish the 
news of such a disaster ; but despatches had already 
reached the Government, and by degrees rumors of what 
had happened crept through the streets of the capital. 
No one knew any details of the calamity, but every one 
soon understood that something terrible had occurred. 

The Legislative Assembly held a midnight session ; but 
nothing was determined on until the morning, when the 
Empire was voted out, and a Republic voted in. 

It was a beautiful Sunday morning. Every Parisian was 
in the street, and, wonderful to say, all faces seemed to ex- 
press satisfaction. The loss of an army, the surrender of 
the emperor, the national disgrace, the prospect of a siege, 
the advance of the Prussians, — were things apparently 
forgotten. Paris was charmed to have got rid of so unlucky 
a ruler, — the emperor for whom more than seven mil- 
lions of Frenchmen had passed a vote of confidence a few 
months before. He seemed to have no longer a single friend, 
or rather he had one : in the Assembly an elderly deputy 
stood up in his place and boldly said that he had taken 
an oath to be faithful to the Emperor Napoleon, and did 
not think himself absolved from it by his misfortunes. 




JULES SIMON. 



THE SIEGE OF PARIS. 257 

It was almost in a moment, almost without a breath of 
opposition, that on the morning of Sept. 5, 1870, the Em- 
pire was voted at an end, and a Republic put in its place. 
The duty of governing was at once confided to seven 
men, called the Committee of Defence. Of these, Arago, 
Cremieux, and Gamier- Pages had been members of the 
Provisional Government in 1848, while Leon Gambetta, 
Jules Favre, Jules Ferry, and Jules Simon afterwards dis- 
tinguished themselves. Rochefort, the insurrectionist, 
made but one step from prison to the council board, and 
was admitted among the new rulers. But the two chief 
men in the Committee of Defence were Jules Favre and 
Gambetta. 

Gambetta, who before that time had been little known, 
was from the South of France, and of Italian origin. He 
was a man full of enthusiasm, vehement, irascible, and im- 
pulsive. The day came when these qualities, tempered and 
refined, did good service to France, when he also proved 
himself one of those great men in history who are capable 
of supreme self-sacrifice. At present he was untried. 

Jules Favre was respected for his unstained reputation and 
perfect integrity, his disinterestedness and civic virtues, as 
also for his fluency of speech. In person he was a small, 
thin man, with a head that was said to resemble the popular 
portraits of General Jackson. 

General Jules Trochu, who was confirmed as military 
commander of Paris, had written a book, previous to the 
war, regarding the inefficiency of the French army; he 
had been therefore no favorite with the emperor. His 
chief defect, it was said, was that he talked so well that he 
was fond of talking, and too readily admitted many to his 
confidence. 

The Council of Regency had in the night melted away. 
A mob was surging round the Tuileries. Where had the 
empress-regent fled? 

When disasters had followed fast upon one another, the 
empress had in her bewilderment found it hard to realize 
that the end of the empire was at hand. Bazaine was the 

17 



258 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

man whom she relied on. She had no great liking for 
Marshal MacMahon, and she does not appear to have been 
conscious that all was lost till, on the night of September 
4, she fomid M. Conti, the emperor's secretary, busy 
destroying his private papers. To burn them was impossi- 
ble ; they were torn into small bits and put in a bath-tub, 
then hot water was poured over them, which reduced them 
to pulp. Vast quantities, however, remained undestroyed, 
some of them compromising to their writers. 

When the truth of the situation broke upon the empress, 
she was very much frightened. Her dread was that she 
might be torn in pieces by a mob that would invade 
the Tuileries. In a fortnight her fair face had become 
haggard, and white streaks showed themselves in her 
beautiful hair. 

It is safest in such cases to trust foreigners rather than 
subjects. Two foreigners occupied themselves with plans 
for the empress's personal safety. The first idea was that 
if flight became inevitable, she should take refuge with the 
Sisters of the Sacre Coeur, in their convent in the Rue 
Picpus ; and arrangements had been made for this 
contingency. 

The life of the empress was strange and piteous during 
her last days upon the throne. She was up every morning 
by seven, and heard mass. Her dress was black cashmere, 
with a white linen collar and cuffs. All day she was the 
victim of every person who claimed an audience, all talking, 
protesting, gesticulating, and generally begging. The day 
the false rumor arrived that the Prussians had been de- 
feated at the Quarries of Jaumont she flew down to the 
guard-room, where the soldiers off duty were lounging on 
their beds, waving the telegram over her head. 

The news of the capitulation at Sedan and of the decree 
deposing the emperor, roused the Parisian populace. By 
one o'clock on September 5 the mob began to threaten 
the Tuileries. Then the Italian ambassador, Signor Nigra, 
and the Austrian ambassador. Prince Richard Metternich, 
insisted that the empress must seek a place of safety. As 



THE SIEGE OF PARIS. 259 

it was impossible to reach the street from the Tuileries, 
they made their way through the long galleries of the 
Louvre, and gained the entrance opposite the parish 
church of Saint-Germain I'Auxerrois.^ The street was 
blocked with people uttering cries against the emperor. 
A gamin recognized the fugitives, and shouted, " Here 
comes the empress ! " De Nigra gave him a kick, and 
asked him how he dared to cry : ''Vive I'Empereur?" At 
this the crowd turned upon the boy, and in the confusion 
the empress and her lady-in-waiting were put into a 
cab, driven, it is said, by Gamble, the emperor's faithful 
English coachman. If this were so, the empress did not 
recognize him, for after proceeding a little way, she and 
Madame le Breton, her companion, finding they had but 
three francs between them, and dreading an altercation 
with the cabman if this were not enough to pay their fare, 
got out, and proceeded on foot to the house of the 
American dentist. Dr. Thomas Evans. There they had to 
wait till admitted to his operating-room. The doctor's 
amazement when he saw them was great ; he had not been 
aware of what was passing at the Tuileries, but he took his 
hat, and went out to collect information. Soon he returned 
to tell the empress that she had not escaped a moment too 
soon. 

His wife was at Deauville, a fashionable watering-place in 
Normandy. The doctor placed her wardrobe at the dis- 
posal of the empress, who had saved nothing of her own but 
a few jewels. It is said she owned three hundred dresses, 
and her collection of fans, laces, etc., was probably unique. 
Her own servants had begun to pillage her wardrobe before 
she left the Tuileries. It is said that she would have gone 
forth on horseback and have put herself at the head of the 
troops, but that no riding-habit had been left her, except a 
gay green-and-gold hunting dress worn by her at Fontaine- 
bleau. That morning no servant in the Tuileries could be 
found to bring her breakfast to her chamber. 

The next day Dr. Evans, in his own carriage, took her 

1 Temple Bar, 1883. 



260 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

safely out of Paris, in the character of a lady of unsound 
mind whom he and Madame le Breton were conveying to 
friends in the country. Two days later they reached Deau- 
ville after several narrow escapes, the empress, on one occa- 
sion, having nearly betrayed herself by an effort to stop a 
man who was cruelly beating his horse. 

There were two English yachts lying at Deauville. On 
board of one of these Dr. Evans went.' It belonged to 
Sir John Burgoyne, grandson of the General Burgoyne who 
surrendered at Saratoga. Sir John, with his wife, was on a 
pleasure cruise. His yacht, the "Gazelle," was very small, 
only forty-five tons' burden, and carried a crew of six men. 

As soon as Sir John Burgoyne had satisfied himself that 
it was really the empress who was thus thrown on his pro- 
tection, he placed himself and his yacht at her disposal, 
insisting, however, that she must not come on board till 
nearly midnight, when he would meet her on the qimi. 
It was fortunate that he made this arrangement, for, after 
dark, a police agent and a Russian spy came on board and 
searched every corner of the little vessel. When at last 
they departed. Sir John went on to the qiLai, and shortly 
afterwards met two ladies, and a gentleman who carried a 
hand-bag. One of the ladies stepped up to him and said, 
" I believe you are the English gentleman who will take me 
to England. I am the empress." She then burst into 
tears. On reaching the yacht, her first eager demand was 
for newspapers. Happily Lady Burgoyne could tell her 
that the Prince Imperial was safe in England ; from the 
English papers she also learned particulars of the disaster at 
Sedan, of the proclamation of the Republic in the Corps 
L^gislatif at Paris, and of the treatment of the emperor. 

It was an anxious time for all on board the " Gazelle," 
for the tide would not serve to leave the harbor till seven 
o'clock the next morning, and Deauville was wildly riotous 
all night. At last they worked out of the harbor and were 
at sea ; but a tempest was raging in the Channel, and so 
violent was it that at half-past one the next morning the 
great EngHsh ironclad '' Captain," commanded by Sir 



THE SIEGE OF PARIS. 26 1 

Hugh Burgoyne, Sir John's cousin, went down, with all on 
board, not far from where the little '' Gazelle " was battling 
with the gale. The " Gazelle " had a terrible passage, ship- 
ping tremendous seas. She danced and rolled like a cork ; 
but the ladies were brave, and were encouraged by Lady 
Burgoyne's composure. " There was no affectation of cour- 
age in Lady Burgoyne," said the empress afterwards ; " she 
simply acted as if nothing were the matter." 

After about eighteen hours of this stormy passage the 
" Gazelle " was safe at anchor off Ryde, in the Isle of 
Wight. The empress was anxious that no one should know 
she was in England ; but Sir John told her it was his duty to 
inform the Foreign Office immediately. An answer was at 
once returned by Lord Granville, assuring the empress of 
welcome and protection ; but he added in a postscript to 
Sir John : " Don't you think you may have been imposed 
upon? " 

The fact was that the Foreign Office had already re- 
ceived news of the escape of the empress by way of Ostend, 
under the charge of two English gentlemen, who had been 
themselves deceived. The ladies they had assisted to leave 
Paris were Princess Clotilde and an attendant. 

After the emperor's release from Wilhelmshohe he re- 
ceived Sir John Burgoyne at Chiselhurst, and thanked him, 
with tears in his eyes, for his care of the empress, adding 
that no sailors but the English could have got across the 
Channel on such a night in so small a craft. 

After peace had been signed between Prussia and France, 
the emkeror landed at Dover, where he was touched by the 
kindly and respectful reception he met with from the Eng- 
lish people. The next day he was visited by Lord Malmes- 
bury, an old friend in the days of his youth, before he 
entered on his life of adventure. Lord Malmesbury says : 

" He came into the room alone to meet me, with that remark- 
able smile that could light up his dark countenance. I confess I 
never was more moved. His quiet and calm dignity, and ab- 
sence of all nervousness or irritability, were grand examples of 
moral courage. All the past rushed to my memory. He must 



\ 



262 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

have seen what I felt, for he said: '•A la gtierre cotnme a la 
guerre. It is very good of you to come to see me.' In a quiet, 
natural way he then praised the kindness of the Germans at 
Wilhelmshohe, nor did a single plaint escape him during our 
conversation. He said he had been deceived as to the force 
and preparation of his armies, but without mentioning names, 
nor did he abuse anybody, till I mentioned Trochu, who had 
abandoned the empress, whom he had sworn to defend. Dur- 
ing half an hour he conversed with me as in the best days of 
his life, with dignity and resignation, but when I saw him again 
he was much more depressed. He was grieving at the destruc- 
tion of Paris, and at the anarchy prevaiHng over France, far 
more than he had done over his own misfortunes. That the 
Communists should have committed such horrors in the pres- 
ence of their enemies, the Prussians, seemed to him the very 
acme of humiliation and national infamy." 

On Jan. 9, 1873, he died at Chiselhurst, in the presence of 
the empress, who never left him, released from the storms 
of a fitful existence and from intense physical suffering. 

Let us return now to Paris and the Committee of Defence, 
its new Republican Government. Though the people of 
Paris, in the excitement consequent on the proclamation of 
a Republic, seemed to have forgotten the Prussians, the 
prospect of their speedy arrival stared the Government in 
the face. It was a Government, not of France, but of Paris. 
France had had no voice in making this new Republic, nor 
was it at all likely that it would be popular in the Provinces ; 
but meanwhile work of every kind was pressing on its 
hands. The fortifications of Paris were unmanned, and, 
indeed, were not even completed, and there were hardly 
any soldiers in the capital. 

The first thing to be done was to bring provisions into 
the city. Cattle, grain, salt, hay, preserved meats, in short, 
everything edible that could be imagined, poured in so long 
as the railroads remained open. All public buildings be- 
came storehouses, but affairs were conducted with such 
recklessness and disorder that the live-stock suffered terribly, 
and half the hay was wasted. As to troops. General Vinoy 
arrived with twenty thousand soldiers, who had been sta- 



THE SIEGE OF PARIS. 263 

tioned between Belgium and Sedan. They had never fought 
the Prussians, but were impatient of disciphne and utterly 
demoralized. Stragglers and fugitives from Sedan came in 
also, but these were still less to be depended on. The 
National Guard had never enjoyed the favor of the em- 
peror, and had been suffered to fall to pieces. It was now 
reorganized and armed as well as the Government was able. 
There was a body of Mobiles who had been sent away from 
the army by Marshal MacMahon because they were so in- 
subordinate that he did not know what to do with them. 
Ninety thousand Mobiles came up from the Provinces be- 
fore the gates of Paris closed, — excellent material for sol- 
diers, but wholly uninstructed, — and finally about ten 
thousand sailors arrived from Brest, who were kept in strict 
discipline by their officers, and were the most reliable part 
of the garrison. 

The male population of Paris remained in the city, almost 
to a man, except those known to the police as thieves or 
ex-convicts, who were all sent away. Women and children 
also were removed, if their husbands and fathers could afford 
it, to places of safety. 

Around the city was a wall twelve yards high, forming a 
polygonal inclosure. At each corner of the polygon was a 
bastion, in which were stationed the big guns. The wall 
connecting the bastions is called a curtain. The bastions 
protected the curtains, and were themselves protected by 
sixteen detached forts, built on all the eminences around 
Paris. The most celebrated of these forts lies to the west 
of Paris, between it and Versailles, and is called Fort Vale- 
rien. It is erected on a steep hill long called Mont Cal- 
vaire, from which is a magnificent view of the city. This 
steep and stony hill for several centuries used to be as- 
cended by pilgrims on their knees ; the mount, where once 
stood an altar of the Druids, became a consecrated place 
long before the Revolution. 

Louis Philippe, in 1841, had planned the fortifications of 
Paris, but in his time they had been only partially con- 
structed. Even in 1870, as I have said, they were not com- 



264 FRANCE IN I'HE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

plete. When the siege became imminent, the first thing 
to be done was to put them in good order ; but for a week 
the working-men in Paris were so intoxicated with the idea 
of having a repubhc that they could not be made to do 
steady work upon anything. It was also considered neces- 
sary to cut down all trees and to destroy all villages between 
the forts and the walls of the city, so that they might afford 
no shelter to the Prussians. The poor inhabitants of these 
villages flocked into Paris, bringing with them carts piled 
with their household goods, their wives and children peep- 
ing out aghast between the chairs and beds. The beautiful 
trees in the Bois de Boulogne were cut down ; the deer and 
the swans and other wild fowl on the lakes (long the pets 
of the Parisian holiday makers) were shot by parties of 
Mobiles sent out for that purpose. 

No military man beUeved that Paris, defended by uncom- 
pleted fortifications, could withstand a direct attack from 
the Prussians ; no one dreamed of a blockade, for it was 
thought that it would take a million and a quarter of men 
to invest the city, and the Prussians were known not to have 
that number for the purpose. The idea was that the enemy 
would choose some point, would attack it with all his forces, 
would lose probably thirty thousand men, and would take 
the city. But Bismarck and King William and Von Moltke 
had no idea of losing thirty thousand men. They were 
certain that there would be risings and disturbances in Paris. 
They beheved that their forces might even be called in to 
save respectable Parisians from the outrages of the Reds. 
They knew that rural France, having little love for Paris or 
the Republic, was not likely to accept the Government 
formed without its own consent, nor march to the assistance 
of the capital. Even should the provincial population bestir 
itself, the troops it could send would be only raw levies, and 
there was no great leader to animate or to direct popular 
enthusiasm. 

It was quite true that the respectable classes in Paris had 
as much to fear from the Reds as from the Prussians. The 
mob of Paris was wild for a commune. 



THE SIEGE OF PARIS. 265 

It is not always known what is meant by a commune, 
and I may be pardoned if I pause to define it here. 

In feudal times cities all over Europe won for themselves 
charters. By these charters they acquired the right to 
govern themselves; that is, the burghers elected their own 
mayor and their council or aldermen, and this body govern- 
ing the community was called the commune. When the 
feudal system fell in France, and all power was centralized 
in the king, city governments were established by royal 
edict only. Paris, for instance, was governed by the 
Prefect of the Seine, — he had under him the maires of 
twenty Arrondissements ; and thus it was in every French 
city. All public offices in France were in the gift of 
the Throne. 

To Americans, who have mayors and city councils in 
every city, municipal taxation, municipal elections, and 
municipal laws, a commune appears the best mode of city 
government. But if we can imagine one of our large cities 
possessing the same power over the United States that Paris 
wields over France, we shall take a different view of the 
matter. Paris governed by a commune, that commune 
being elected by a mob and aspiring to give laws to France, 
might well indeed have alarmed all Frenchmen. We may 
judge of its feeling towards the Provinces from the indig- 
nation expressed by Parisian Communists when during the 
Commune, Lyons and some other cities talked of setting 
up communes of their own. 

In olden times, in France, Italy, and Germany (as in 
Great Britain at the present day), it was not the mob, but 
the burghers, whose interests depended upon the prosperity 
of their city, who voted in municipal elections. France had 
established universal suffrage, and the restless " men of 
Belleville," — the "white blouses," — were liable in any 
time of excitement to be joined by roughs from other cities, 
and by all working-men out of employment. These appre- 
hensions of the respectable citizens of Paris were horribly 
realized in 1871. The new Republic, meantime, was not 
Red, not Communistic, not Socialistic, but Republican. 



266 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

During the Revolution of 1848 there had been little 
intoxication in Paris; but in the twenty-two years that 
followed, the French had learned to drink absinthe and 
to frequent such places as " L'Assommoir." All accounts 
speak of the drunkenness in France during the Franco - 
Prussian war. 

Meantime, during the two weeks that preceded the 
arrival of the Prussians, the streets of Paris were crowded 
with men in every variety of uniform, — francs-tireurs in 
their Opera Comique costume, cuirassiers, artillerymen, 
lancers, regulars. National Guards, and Mobiles. Car- 
riages were mixed up with heavy wagons loaded some- 
times with worthless household goods, sometimes with 
supplies. Peasants' carts were seen in the midst of fright- 
ened flocks of sheep driven by bewildered shepherds. 
Everybody was in some one's way. All was confusion, 
excitement, — and exhilaration. 

Till September 19 the railways continued to run. Then 
the fifty-one gates of Paris were closed, the railroad en- 
trances were walled up, and the following notice appeared 
upon the walls : — 

" Citizens ! The last lines which connected Paris with France 
and Europe were cut yesterday evening. Paris is left to her- 
self. She has now only her own courage and her own resources 
to rely on. Europe, which has received so much enlightenment 
from this great city, and has always felt a certain jealousy of 
her glory, now abandons Irer. But Paris, we are persuaded, 
will prove that she has not ceased to be the most solid ram- 
part of French independence." 

To hold out was the determination of all classes ; but 
the very next day the Reds put forth a manifesto demand- 
ing a commune, the dismissal of the police, the seques- 
tration of the property of all rich or influential men, 
and a public declaration that the king of Prussia would 
not be treated with so long as his armies occupied one 
foot of French soil. '' Nothing less than these things," 
said the document, ''will satisfy the people." 



THE SIEGE OF PARIS. 267 

Here we see the usual assumption of the Parisian Com- 
munists that they are "the people." They have always 
assumed that thirty-two millions of Frenchmen outside the 
walls of Paris counted for nothing. 

As the Prussian armies passed to the southward of Paris 
to take possession of Versailles, an attack, authorized by 
General Trochu and by General Ducrot (who had escaped 
from Sedan) , was made upon the German columns. The 
Zouaves, who had come back to Paris under General 
Vinoy, demoralized by the disasters of their comrades, 
were the first to break and run. The poor little Mobiles 
stood firm and did their duty. 

The official report said : " Some of our soldiers took to 
flight with regrettable haste," — a phrase which became a 
great joke among the Parisians. 

That night the Reds breathed fire and fury against the 
Government, '• and the respectable part of Paris," says 
M. de Sarcey, the great dramatic critic, " saw themselves 
between two dangers. It would be hard to say which of 
them they dreaded most. They hated the Prussians very 
much, but they feared the men of Belleville more." 

Meantime Jules Favre, who had been appointed Minis- 
ter for Foreign Affairs, had procured a safe-conduct from 
the Prussians, and had gone out to see Count Bismarck 
and King William, who had their headquarters at Baron 
Rothschild's beautiful country seat of Ferrieres. His ob- 
ject was to obtain an armistice, that a National Assembly 
might be convoked which would consider the terms of 
peace with the Prussians. 

The Chancellor of North Germany declared that he did 
not recognize the Committee of Defence, represented by 
Julus Favre, as a legitimate government of France compe- 
tent to offer or to consider terms of peace. He treated 
M. Favre with the greatest haughtiness, utterly refusing any 
armistice, but at the close of their first interview he con- 
sented to see him again the next day. 

" I was," says Jules Favre, " at the Chateau de Ferrieres by 
eleven A. m., but Count Bismarck did not leave the king's apart- 



268 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

merits before twelve. I then gathered from him the conditions 
that he demanded for an armistice. They were written in Ger- 
man, and he read them over to me. He desired to occupy, as 
a guarantee, Strasburg, Toul, and Phalsbourg;i and as I had 
the day before named Paris as the place for the meeting of the 
Assembly, he wished in that case to have possession of some 
fort commanding the city. He named Fort Valerien. Here I 
interrupted him. ' You had better ask for Paris at once,' I said. 
' How can a French Assembly be expected to deliberate when 
covered by your guns ? I hardly know whether I dare to in- 
form my Government that you have made such a proposal.' 
Tours was then named as a place for the Assembly. ' But,' 
said Bismarck, ' Strasburg must be surrendered. It is about to 
fall into our hands. All I ask is that the garrison shall consti- 
tute themselves prisoners of war.' At this I could restrain 
myself no longer. I sprang to my feet and said : ' Count Bis- 
marck, you forget you are speaking to a Frenchman ! To 
sacrifice an heroic garrison which has won our admiration and 
that of the whole world, would be an act of cowardice. Nor 
will I even promise to mention that you ever made such a 
demand.' He answered that he had not meant to wound my 
feelings, he was acting in conformity with the laws of war ; 
but he would see what the king said about the matter. He 
returned in a quarter of an hour, and said that his master 
accepted my proposal as to Tours, but insisted on the sur- 
render of the garrison of Strasburg." 

At this, the negotiation was broken off, Jules Favre con- 
cluding by saying that " the inhabitants of Paris were 
resolved on making any sacrifices, and that their heroism 
might change the current of events." 

The publication of this account of the interview with 
Bismarck produced through Paris a shiver of indignation. 
For a moment all parties were united, the very Reds cry- 
ing out that there must be no more parties, only French- 
men ; and a slight success in a skirmish in one of the 
suburbs of Paris roused enthusiasm to its height in a few 
hours. 

The National Guard now did duty as police, and w^as 
also placed on guard on the ramparts. Each man received 

1 Places still holding out against the Germans. 



THE SIEGE OF PARIS. 269 

thirty sous a day. The Guard was divided into the Old 
Battalions and the New. The Old Battalions were com- 
posed almost entirely of gentlemen and bourgeois, who re- 
turned their pay to the Government ; the New Battalions, 
which were fresh levies of working-men, preferred in gen- 
eral a franc and a half a day for doing nothing, to higher 
wages for making shoes, guns, and uniforms. In vain the 
Government put forth proclamations assuring the people 
that the man who made a chassepot rifle was more of a 
patriot than he who carried one. 

All through September the weather was delightful, and 
mounting guard upon the ramparts was like taking a pleas- 
ant stroll. The Mobiles occupied the forts outside of Paris, 
and were forbidden to come into the city in uniform. Of 
course there was much hunting for Prussian spies, and 
many people were arrested and maltreated, though only 
one genuine spy seems to have been found. The French 
in any popular excitement seem to have treachery upon 
the brain. One phase of their mania was the belief that 
any light seen moving in the upper stories of a house was 
a signal to the Prussians ; and sometimes a whole district 
was disturbed because some quiet student had sat reading 
late at night with a green shade over his lamp, or a 
mother had been nursing a sick child. ^ 

As October went on, it became a sore trial to the Pa- 
risians to be cut off from all outside news. Not a letter nor 
a newspaper crossed the lines. Even the agents of Foreign 
Governments, and Mr. Washburne, the only foreign ambas- 
sador in Paris, were prohibited from hearing from their 
Governments, unless all communications were read by 
Bismarck before being forwarded to them. One great 
source of suffering to the men in Paris who had sent 
away their families was the knowledge that they must be 
in want of money. No one had anticipated a prolonged 
blockade. 

Before the gates had been closed, two elderly members 
of the Committee of Defence — Cremieux and Garnier- 
Pag^s — had been sent out to govern the Provinces. 



2/0 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

M. Thiers was visiting all the capitals of Europe, as a sort 
of ambassador-at-large, to enlist foreign diplomatic sympa- 
thy, and in October it was resolved to send out M. Gam- 
betta, in the hope that he might organize a National Assem- 
bly, or perhaps induce the Southern Provinces (where he 
had great influence) to make a demonstration for the rehef 
of the capital. Provincial France had long chafed under 
the idea that its government was made and unmade by the 
Parisians, and there was no great sympathy in the Provinces 
for Paris in her struggle with the Prussians, until it was 
shown how nobly the city and its inhabitants bore the 
hardships of the siege. 

Small sorties continued to be made during October, 
chiefly with a view of accustoming raw troops to stand fire. 
On October 28, came news of the surrender of Bazaine at 
Metz to the Prussians with his army (including officers) of 
nearly one hundred and ninety thousand men. The uni- 
versal cry was "Treachery ! " The same day that the Prus- 
sians forwarded this news into Paris, a small body of German 
troops was worsted in a sortie beyond St. Denis. These two 
events roused the turbulent part of the population of Paris 
almost to frenzy, and resulted in a rising called the emeiife 
of October 31. 

The disorderly classes living in the suburbs of Belleville 
and Montmartre (which have taken the place of the old 
Faubourg Saint-Antoine) , assuming "The Commune " for 
their war-cry, were led on by such men as Ledru-Rollin, 
Blanqui, and Felix Pyat. 

"The party of the Commune," says M. de Sarcey, "was 
composed partly of charlatans, partly of dupes, — that is, 
the real members of the Commune as a party. The rank 
and file were simply roughs, ready for any mischief, and, 
we may add, for any plunder." 

On the morning of October 31, a great crowd of these 
men assembled before the H6tel-de-Ville, then the seat of 
government. General Trochu, Jules Favre, the Maire of 
Paris, and even Rochefort, who was a member of the Com- 
mittee of Defence, harangued them for hours without pro- 



THE SIEGE OF PARIS. 2/1 

ducing any impression. The days were passed when the 
mob of Paris could be controlled by a harangue. Finally, 
the crowd made its way into the H6tel-de-Ville, and en- 
deavored to force the Committee of Defence to issue a 
proclamation which would convene the citizens to vote for 
a commune. The windows of the Hotel- de-Ville were 
flung open, in spite of the efforts of the members of the 
Government, and hsts of the proposed Communistic rulers 
were flung out to the mob. 

Meantime the members of the existing Government were 
imprisoned in their council chamber, and threatened by 
armed men. Jules Favre sat quietly in his chair; Jules 
Simon sketched upon his blotting-paper ; rifles were pointed 
at General Trochu. " Escape, General ! " cried some one 
in the crowd. ''I am a soldier. Citizen," he answered, 
" and my duty is to die at my post." One member of the 
Committee managed, however to escape, and summoned 
the National Guard to the assistance of his coUeagues. 

It was eight o'clock in the evening when the troops 
arrived. At sight of their guns and bayonets the populace, 
grown weary of its day's excitement, melted away. Before 
dayhght, order was restored. '' Thus," says an American 
then in Paris, " in twelve hours Paris had one Republican 
Government taken prisoner, another set up, and the first 
restored." 

So peace, after a fashion, returned ; but Count Bismarck, 
learning of these events, was strengthened in his determi- 
nation to keep Paris shut up within her gates till the fac- 
tions in the city, in the coming days of famine and distress, 
should destroy one another. 

M. Thiers had almost concluded an agreement for an 
armistice of thirty days, during which Paris was to be fed, 
while an election should be held all over France for a 
National Assembly; but after the disorders of October 31, 
Count Bismarck refused to hear of any food being sup- 
plied to Paris, negotiations were broken off, and the war 
went on. 

Up to this time bread in Paris had been sufficient for its 



272 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

needs, and not too dear. Wine was plenty, but meat was 
growing scarce. Horses were requisitioned for food. It 
was the upper classes who ate horse-flesh and queer ani- 
mals out of the Jardin des Plantes ; the working-classes 
would not touch such things till driven to eat them by 
absolute famine. 

Butter rose to five dollars a pound, cabbages were sold 
by the leaf. Early in the siege, eggs were three dollars a 
dozen, and milk soon became unattainable. ^^ Poor little 
babies died Hke flies," says an eye-witness. Fuel, too, was 
growing very scarce and very dear. The women supported 
their privations bravely, but it is terrible to think what 
must have been the sufferings of mothers deprived of whole- 
some food for their little children. The firmness and self- 
sacrifice of the bourgeoisie were above all praise. 

All kinds of meats were eaten. Mule was said to be 
delicious, — far superior to beef. Antelope cost eighteen 
francs a pound, but was not as good as stewed rabbit ; 
elephant's trunk was eight dollars a pound, it being es- 
teemed a delicacy. Bear, kangaroo, ostrich, yak, etc., 
varied the bill of fare for those who could afford to eat 
them. 

Men of wealth who had lost everything, took their mis- 
fortunes cheerfully. While the worst qualities of the 
Parisians came out in some classes, the best traits of the 
French character shone forth in others. A great deal of 
charity was dispensed, both public and private, and on the 
whole, the very poorest class was but little the worse for 
the privations of the siege. 

The houses left empty by their owners were made over 
to the refugees from the villages, and many amusing stories 
are told of their embarrassment when surrounded by objects 
of art, and articles of furniture whose use was unknown to 
them. 

At first the theatres were closed, and some of them were 
turned into mihtary hospitals ; but by the beginning of 
November it was thought better to reopen them. At one 
theatre, Victor Hugo's " Les Chatiments " was recited, — 



THE SIEGE OF PARIS. 2/3 

that bitterest arraignment of Napoleon IIT. and the Second 
Empire ; at another. Beethoven and Mendelssohn were 
played, with apologies for their being Germans. 

The hospital parts of the theatres were railed off, and in 
the corridors ballet-girls, actors, and sisters of charity 
mingled together. 

Victor Hugo was in Paris during the siege, but he lent 
his name to no party or demonstration. The recitation of 
his verses at the theatre afforded him great delight, but the 
triumph was short-lived. The attraction of '' Les Chati- 
rnents " soon died away. 

The most popular places of resort for idle men were the 
clubs. On November 21, one of these was visited by our 
American observer. He says, — 

*' The hall was filled to suffocation. Every man present had 
a pipe or cigar in his mouth. It was a sulphurous place, a 
Pandemonium, a Zoological Garden, a Pantomime, a Comedy, 
a Backwoods Fourth of July, and a Donnybrook Fair, all 
combined. Women too were there, the fiercest in the place. 
Orators roared, and fingers were shaken. One speech was on 
the infringement of the liberties of the citizen because soldiers 
were made to march left or right according to the will of their 
officers. Another considered that the sluggards who went on 
hospital service with red crosses on their caps were no better 
than cowards. Then they discovered a spy (as they supposed) 
in their midst, and time was consumed in hustling him out. 
Lastly an orator concluded his speech with awful blasphemy, 
wishing that he were a Titan, and could drive a dagger into the 
Christian's God." 

The most terrible suffering in Paris during the siege was 
'probably mental, suffering from the want of news ; but by 
the middle of November the balloon and pigeon postal 
service was organized. Balloons were manufactured in 
Paris, and sent out whenever the wind was favorable. It 
was found necessary, however, to send them off by night, 
lest they should be fired into by the Germans. A balloon 
generally carried one or two passengers, and was sent up 
from one of the now empty railroad stations. It also gen- 
erally took five small cages, each containing thirty-six 

18 



274 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

pigeons. These pigeons were of various colors, and all 
named. They were expected to return soon to their homes, 
unless cold, fog, a hawk, or a Prussian bullet should stop 
them on the way. Each would bring back a small quill 
fastened by threads to one of its tail-feathers and containing 
a minute square of flexible, waterproof paper, on which had 
been photographed messages in characters so small as to 
be deciphered only by a microscope. Some of these would 
be ofi&cial despatches, some private messages. One pigeon 
would carry as much as, printed in ordinary type, would fill 
one sheet of a newspaper. The Parisians looked upon the 
pigeons with a kind of veneration ; when one, drooping and 
weary, alighted on some roof, a crowd would collect and 
watch it anxiously. Sometimes they were caught by the 
Germans, and sent back into Paris with false news. 

On November 15 a pigeon brought a despatch saying 
that the South of France had raised an army for the relief 
of Paris, and that it was in motion under an old general 
with the romantic name of Aurelles des Paladines, that 
it had driven the Prussians out of Orleans, and was coming 
on with all speed to the capital. The Parisians were eager 
to make a sortie and to join this relieving army. General 
Trochu was not so eager, having no great confidence in 
his franc s-tii^eurs, his National Guard, and his Mobiles. 
They numbered in all four hundred thousand men ; but 
eighty thousand serviceable soldiers would have been worth 
far more. 

On November 28, however, the sortie was made ; and 
had the expected army been at hand, it might have been 
successful. The Parisians crossed the Marne, and fought 
the Prussians so desperately that in two days they had lost 
more men than in the battles at Gravelotte. But on the 
third day an order was given to return to Paris ; the Gov- 
ernment had received reliable information that the Army 
of the Loire (under Aurelles des Paladines) had met with 
a reverse, and would form no junction with the Parisian 
forces. 

By the end of November cannon had been cast in the 



THE SIEGE OF PARIS. 2/5 

beleaguered city, paid for, not by the Government, but 
by individual subscription. These guns were subsequently 
to play a tragic part in the history of the city. Some 
carried farther than the Prussian guns. All of them had 
names. The favorite was called Josephine, and was a 
great pet with the people. 

Christmas Day of that sad year arrived at last, and 
New Year's Day, the great and joyful fete-day in all 
French famiUes. A few confectioners kept their stores 
open, and a few boxes of bonbons were sold ; but pres- 
ents of potatoes, or small packages of coffee, were by this 
time more acceptable gifts. Nothing was plenty in Paris 
but champagne and Colman's mustard. The rows upon 
rows of the last-named article in the otherwise empty 
windows of the grocers reminded Englishmen and Ameri- 
cans of Grumio's cruel offer to poor Katherine of the mus- 
tard without the beef, since she could not have the beef 
with the mustard. 

Here is the bill-of-fare of a dinner given at a French 
restaurant upon that Christmas Day : — 

Soup from horse meat. 

Mince of cat. 

Shoulder of dog with tomato sauce. 

Jugged cat with mushrooms. 

Roast donkey and potatoes. 

Rat, peas, and celery. 

Mice on toast. 

Plum pudding. 

One remarkable feature of the siege was that every- 
body's appetite increased enormously. Thinking about 
food stimulated the craving for it, and by New Year's Day 
there were serious apprehensions of famine. The reckless 
waste of bread and breadstuffs in the earlier days of the 
siege was now repented of. Flour had to be eked out with 
all sorts of things, and the bread eaten during the last 
weeks of the siege was a black and sticky mixture made 
up of almost anything but flour. All Paris was rationed. 
Poor mothers, leaving sick children at home, stood for 



2/6 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

hours in the streets, in the bitter cold, to obtain a ration 
of horseflesh, or a few ounces of this unnutritious bread. 

After news came of the retreat of the Army of the 
Loire, great discouragement crept over the garrison. The 
Mobiles from the country, who had never expected to be 
shut up in Paris for months, began to pine for their 
families and villages. What might not be happening to 
them ? and they far away ! 

Every day there was a panic of some kind in the be- 
leaguered city, — some rumor, true or false, to stir men's 
souls. Besides this, the garrison had for months been idle, 
and was consumed with ennui. Among the prevailing 
complaints was one that General Trochu was too pious ! 
They might have said of him with truth, that, though 
brave and determined when once in action, he was want- 
ing in decision. The garrison in Paris had no general 
who could stir their hearts, — no leader of men. General 
Trochu, and the rulers under him, waited to be moved by 
public opinion. They were ready to do what the masses 
would dictate, but seemed not to be able to lead them. 
In a besieged city the population generally bends to the 
will of one man ; in this case it was one man, or a small 
body of men, who bent to the will of the people. 

The winter of 1871 was the coldest that had been 
known for twenty years. Fuel and warm clothing grew 
scarce. The Rothschilds distributed $20,000 worth- of 
winter garments among the suffering ; and others followed 
their example, till there was no warm clothing left to buy ; 
but the suffering in every home was intense, and at last 
soldiers were brought in frozen from the ramparts. There 
was of course no gas, and the city was dimly lighted by 
petroleum. Very great zeal was shown throughout Paris 
for hospital service. French military hospitals and the 
service connected with them are called " ambulances." 
"We were all full of recollections," says M. de Sarcey, 
"of the exertions made on both sides in the American 
Civil War. Our model hospital was formed on the Amer- 
ican plan." 



THE SIEGE OF PARIS. 277 

The American Sanitary Commission had sent out speci- 
mens of hospital apphances to the Exposition Universelle 
of 1867. These had remained in Paris, and the hospital 
under canvas, when set up, excited great admiration. 
Everything was for use ; nothing for show. " The four 
great medicines that we recognize," said the American sur- 
geon in charge, " are fresh air, hot and cold water, opium, 
and quinine." 

Among the bravest and most active litter-bearers were 
the Christian Brothers, — men not priests, but vowed to 
poverty, celibacy, and the work of education. " They 
advanced wherever bullets fell," says M. de Sarcey, ''to 
pick up the dead or wounded ; recoiling from no task, 
however laborious or distasteful; never complaining of 
their food, drinking only water ; and after their stretcher- 
work was done, returning to their humble vocation of 
teachers, without dreaming that they had played the part 
of heroes." 

Before Bazaine surrendered at Metz, eager hopes had 
been entertained that the army raised in the South by 
Chanzy and Gambetta might unite with his one hundred 
and seventy-two thousand soldiers in Metz, and march to 
the relief of Paris; but to this day no one knows pre- 
cisely why Bazaine took no steps in furtherance of this 
plan, but, instead, surrendered ignominiously to the Ger- 
mans. It is supposed that being attached to the em- 
peror, and dreading a Republic, he declined to fight for 
France if it was to benefit "the rabble Government of 
Paris," as he called the Committee of Public Defence. 
He seems to have thought that the Germans, after tak- 
ing Paris, would make peace, exacting Alsace and Lorraine, 
and then restore the emperor. 

Nothing could have been braver or more brilliant than 
the efforts of Chanzy and Gambetta on the Loire. At one 
time they were actually near compelling the Prussians to 
raise the siege of Paris ; for two hundred and fifty thou- 
sand men was a small army to invest so large a city. But 
the one hundred and fifty thousand German soldiers who 



2jZ FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

were besieging Metz were enabled by Bazaine's surrender 
to reinforce the troops beleaguering the capital. 

Gambetta seems to have been at that time the only man 
in France who showed himself to be a true leader of men, 
and amidst numerous disadvantages he did nobly. He and 
Chanzy died twelve years later, within a week of each 
other. 

From September 19, when the siege began, up to Decem- 
ber 27, the Parisian soldiers, four hundred thousand in 
number (such as they were) had never, except in occasional 
sorties, encountered the Prussians, nor had any shot from 
Prussian guns entered their city. On the night of Decem- 
ber 27 the bombardment began. It commenced by clear- 
ing what was called the Plateau d'Avron, to the east of 
Paris. The weather was intensely cold, the earth as hard 
as iron and as sHppery as glass. The French do not rough 
their horses even in ordinary times, and slipperiness is a 
public calamity in a French city. The troops, stationed 
with little shelter on the Plateau d'Avron, had no notion 
that the Germans had been preparing masked batteries. 
The first shells that fell among them produced inde- 
scribable confusion. The men rushed to their own guns 
to reply, but their balls fell short about five hundred 
yards. It became evident that the Plateau d'Avron must 
be abandoned, and that night, in the cold and the darkness, 
together with the sHppery condition of the ground, which 
was worst of all, General Trochu superintended the re- 
moval of all the cannon. The Prussian batteries were 
admirably placed and admirably served. 

But tremendous as the bombardment was (sometimes a 
shell every two minutes), it is astonishing how little real 
damage it did to the city. The streets were wide, the open 
spaces numerous, the houses soHdly built, with large court- 
yards. In the middle of January, when the extreme cold 
moderated, hundreds of people would assemble in the Place 
de la Concorde, looking skyward. A black object would 
appear, with a small bright spot in it, and making a graceful 
curve in the air, with a whizzing, humming sound, would 



THE SIEGE OF PARIS. 279 

drop suddenly, with a resounding boom, in some distant 
quarter of the city. Then the spectators, greatly interested 
in the sight, waited for another. The shells, which the Pari- 
sians called " obus," were like an old-fashioned sugar-loaf, 
and weighed sometimes one hundred and fifty pounds. But 
though, by reason of the great distance of the Prussian bat- 
teries, the damage was by no means in proportion to the 
number of shells sent into the city, many of them struck 
public buildings, hospitals, and orphan asylums, in spite of 
the Red Cross flags displayed above them. 

By January 19, when the siege had lasted four months, 
and the bombardment three weeks, the end seemed to be 
drawing near. Another sortie was attempted ; but there was a 
dense fog, the usual accompaniment of a January thaw, and 
its only result was the loss of some very valuable lives. 

Then General Trochu asked for an armistice of two days 
to bury the dead ; but his real object was that Jules Favre 
might enter the Prussian lines and endeavor to negotiate. 
Before this took place, however, Trochu himself resigned 
his post as military governor. He had sworn that under 
him Paris should never capitulate. General Vinoy took his 
command. 

The moment the Government of Defence was known to 
be in extreme difficulty, the Communists issued procla- 
mations and provoked risings. ^he H6tel-de-Ville was 
again attacked. In this rising famished women took a 
prominent part. Twenty-six people were killed in the 
emeute, and only twenty-eight by that day's bombardment. 

On January 23 Jules Favre went out to Versailles. Paris 
was hushed. It was not known that negotiations were going 
on, but all felt that the end was near at hand. No one, 
however, dared to say the word '^ capitulate," though some 
of the papers admitted that by February 3 there would not 
be a mouthful of bread in the city. 

On January 27 the Parisians learned their fate. The fol- 
lowing announcement appeared in the official journal : 

" So long as the Government could count on an army of relief, 
it was their duty to neglect nothing that could conduce to the 



280 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

prolongation of the defence of Paris. At present our armies, 
though still in existence, have been driven back by the fortune 
of war. . . . Under these circumstances the Government 
has been absolutely compelled to negotiate. We have reason to 
believe that the principle of national sovereignty will be kept 
intact by the speedy caUing of an Assembly; that during the 
armistice the German army will occupy our forts; that we shall 
preserve intact our National Guards and one division of our 
army; and that none of our soldiers will be conveyed beyond 
our frontier as prisoners of war." 

The result was so inevitable that it did not spread the 
grief and consternation we have known in many modern 
cases of surrender. Those who suffered most from the 
sorrow of defeat were not the Red brawlers of Belleville, who 
cried loudest that they had been betrayed, but the honest, 
steady-going botcj'geoisie, who for love of their country 
had for four months borne the burden and distress of 
resistance. 

During the four months of siege sixty-five thousand per- 
sons perished in Paris : ten thousand died in hospitals, 
three thousand were killed in battle, sixty- six hundred 
were destroyed by small-pox, and as many by bronchitis 
and pneumonia. The babies, who died chiefly for want 
of proper food, numbered three thousand, — just as many 
as the soldiers who fell in battle. 

Two sad weeks passed, the Parisians meanwhile waiting 
for the meeting of a National Assembly. During those 
weeks the blockade of Paris continued, and the arrival of 
provisions was frequently retarded at the Prussian out- 
posts ; nor were provision-carts safe when they had passed 
beyond the Prussian lines, for there were many turbulent 
Parisians lying in wait to rob them. All Paris was eager 
for fresh fish and for white bread. The moment the gates 
were opened, twenty-five thousand persons poured out of 
the city, most of whom were in a state of anxiety and 
uncertainty where to find their families. J 

At last peace was made. One of its conditions was that 
the Germans were to occupy two of the forts that com- 



THE SIEGE OF PARIS. 28 1 

manded Paris until that city paid two hundred miUions of 
francs (^40,000,000) as its ransom. It was also stipulated 
that the Prussian army was to make a triumphal entry into 
the city, not going farther, however, than the Place de la 
Concorde. 

This took place March i, 187 1, but was witnessed by 
none of the respectable Parisians, although the German 
soldiers were surrounded by a hooting crowd, whom they 
seemed to regard with little attention. 

Thus ended the siege of Paris, and the day afterwards 
the homeward march of the Germans was begun. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE PRUSSIANS IN FRANCE. 

THE Prussian army was more than two weeks on the 
road from Sedan to Paris and Versailles, and it was 
just one month after the French emperor surrendered 
before the king of Prussia made his headquarters in the 
beautiful city which seems to enshrine the memory of 
Louis XIV. 

On Sunday, September i8, a scouting party of three Uhlans 
made their appearance at the gates of Versailles. They 
had in fact lost their way, and stumbled unawares upon the 
city ; however, they rode boldly up to the gate, demanded 
admittance, and presented themselves at the 7nairie, bring- 
ing terror and dismay to the inhabitants. When the 
maire presented himself at their summons, they demanded 
on what terms Versailles would surrender ? He repHed 
that he could not treat with private soldiers, but must see 
their officers. "Oh, our officers are close at hand," they 
replied ; '^ they are waiting with a large force in yonder 
woods. If you come to the gate, they will meet you there." 
The maire assented, and the audacious Uhlans galloped 
safely away. Let us hope that at their firesides in the 
far-off Fatherland they still laugh over this unparalleled 
adventure. 

A few hours later, news was received at Versailles that 
fighting was going on towards the south of Paris between 
French troops and the Prussians ; and all the inhabitants, 
including foreign residents, were busy in preparing sup- 
plies for the field-hospitals, — hnt, bandages, water-cans, 
and pillows stuffed with torn paper. Before long, eight 



THE PRUSSIANS IN FRANCE. 283 

Prussians and an officer entered the city. They were thus 
described by one who saw them as they dashed up to the 
7?iairie through an excited crowd : — 

" They were small men. They had light hair, but were very 
thick-set. They looked very tired, and were covered with dust 
and with torn clothes ; but they had good horses. They wore 
the Prussian helmet and spike, and were well armed, with a 
sabre on one side and on the other a huge horse-pistol two feet 
long, while they carried carbines in their hands, all ready to 
shoot if occasion offered. But all the French soldiers had left 
Versailles, except a few National Guards. The inhabitants 
looked very sad; the women were crying, and the men looked 
as if they would hke to. We walked on, when suddenly we saw 
a troop of horsemen come through an arch that spanned one of 
the main roads ; behind came more, and more, and more. The 
first were fifty Uhlans. These fellows were in blue, on horse- 
back, very handsome. Then came some men with silver 
death's-heads and crossbones on their caps ; then hundreds and 
hundreds of mounted fellows with needle-guns and sabres ; then 
three regiments of infantry, marching in superb time. Every 
five hundred men had a drum corps and fifes playing in perfect 
unison. You could almost feel the ground shake with the 
steady thud of their march as they tramped on. The men 
looked dirty and tired, but were fat, and many of them were 
laughing. Looking down the road as far as possible, we could 
still see helmets, spikes, and guns all leaning exactly the same 
way, and glittering in the sunshine. All the officers looked like 
gentlemen, with great whiskers, and jolly, fat faces. None of 
the men talked, much less sang, as the French do. When 
these had passed, there came a splendid band of sixty pieces, 
playing beautifully, and then regiment after regiment of cav- 
alry (not carrying as much, nearly, as the French cavalry do). 
Their horses were in excellent order, many of them very hand- 
some. Lots of the soldiers were smoking great German pipes. 

" This was the army of the Crown Prince, less than a third 
of those that entered the city. They passed through Versailles^ 
only stopping to repair the roads torn up by the peasantry. 
Next came artillery and baggage-wagons, and carts of ammu- 
nition ; more infantry, more bands, fifty pontoons on carts ; 
more cavalry ; then hundreds of soldiers on peasants' carts, 
which they had requisitioned as they passed through the coun- 
try; then ambulances and carts, full of wounded, who were 
brought to the Hotel des Reservoirs and to the Palace. They 



284 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

began to pass at half-past one, and were passing three hours ; 
and I saw just as many more going by another road, where they 
passed till seven in the evening. There seemed, at times, to be 
a hunting corps, for every man would have a fat hare or rabbit, 
or hens, ducks, pheasants, or partridges slung on his back. 
One man I saw with a live sheep, full grown, over his shoulders. 

" Only four regiments of infantry, one of cavalry, and four 
batteries of artillery remained in Versailles that night. They 
camped upon the Place d'Armes, lit fires, and cooked. Every- 
thing was remarkable for neatness; the cannon and powder- 
carts were arranged in order in a circle, horses all fastened 
inside the circle, soldiers all sleeping round it. They took off 
their knapsacks, stacked their guns, put their helmets on the 
top of their bayonets, unrolled their great-coats, and lay down, 
still wearing sword and pistols, with their guns at arm's length. 
Thus they pass the night, rain or shine (they have no tents) and 
they look as hardy and strong as lions. 

" By the time the Prussians were fairly in their quarters the 
inhabitants of Versailles seemed to take heart and to be much 
less frightened. Many French peasants could talk German, 
and conversed freely with the Prussians, interpreting what they 
said to an eager crowd. The soldiers seemed to be well fed ; 
we saw them dining on bread and cheese, butter, sausages, and 
wine. In the evening they were very jolly. Fires flickered all 
around ; the soldiers sat singing and smoking. Some milked 
cows that they had stolen, and some were cooking game. The 
formal way in which everything was done was very curious. 
At the gate of every house where officers were quartered were 
two sentries, and every time an officer passed, these men were 
obliged to go through five movements with their guns. On all 
the doors of all the houses the names of the officers stationed 
there were marked in chalk, and a field-telegraph line in the 
streets connected every such house with the niairie.^'' 

This account of the entry of the Prussians into Versailles 
is from the private letter of a very young man, with the 
eye of an artist and a keen love of music and fine horses. 
The letter was seen by the editor of the " Nation," who 
requested leave to publish it. The writer says further, — 

" I got up at seven on the morning of September 20, and went 
down to the Place d'Armes. It was filled with Prussian soldiers ; 
some were sleeping, some were cooking, some eating, some 



THE PRUSSIANS IN FRANCE. 285 

grooming horses, some washing cannon, and all were smoking. 
There were but two tents, belonging to high officers. One of 
these was dressing in the open air before his tent. A guard 
paced up and down with a drawn sword. When I got there, he 
was brushing his hair and putting on his cravat, while a little 
French boy held a looking-glass for him. He had a bright red 
shirt on, and riding-boots up to his hips, and silver spurs. I 
saw his horse brought up, a beautiful, great black one. His 
coat was covered all over with decorations, and he had a very 
brilliant sword. In the other tent there were two officers writ- 
ing. They had about fifty bottles of claret and champagne 
stacked up beside them, and a guard set over it. 

"In a little while all was bustle, but no confusion. All the 
cannon and powder- carts were ranged in numerical order; the 
horses the same; and every bucket and every pot was num- 
bered like the cart to which it belonged. Soon as the buo-les 
sounded, every man jumped, and knew what he had to do. 
There was ringing and rattling of chains, and the horses were 
fastened to the cannon, the soldiers gobbled their last mouth- 
fuls, strapped on their knapsacks, and in a few minutes every, 
thing was in motion, officers giving their orders ; the horses 
neighed, the line was formed, and off they went. 

"That afternoon we saw some French peasants brouo-ht in- 
they had fired on the men who were steahng their carts, horses, 
and cows, and were to be shot. It was very sorrowful. We 
heard afterwards that the Crown Prince had pardoned them. 
Some noble-looking Zouave prisoners ^ were also brouo-ht in 
and the crowd cheered them. 

" About one p. m. a squad of Uhlans, with long lances and 
black-and-white flags came in; then came other men leading 
horses, all very handsome, belonging to the Crown Prince. 
Then came the royal baggage, cart after cart, mostly painted 
purple, with a great gold crown ; but some carts had once been 
French. One of the bands had a brass drum, with the imperial 
eagle and 3d Zouaves painted on it. They showed it to the 
bystanders and laughed. We found that the Crown Prince 
was to be received at the prefecture, — a handsome building 
with a large court in front, and a black-and-gilt grille, such 
as they have round the palace and park. We went there at 
once. A guard of honor was drawn up in front, and a full 
band on each side of the gate. The Crown Prince was sur- 

1 Possibly some of the men who had shown " regrettable haste " 
the day before. 



286 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

rounded by a splendid staff. He is quite handsome, with 
large bushy beard and moustache. He was dressed like his 
officers, and wore a cap such as they all wear, with a scarlet 
band; but he had lots of decorations and a splendid diamond 
star. They all had most beautiful horses, and the effect was 
very kingly. The bands played, and the troops presented arms. 
The prince rode in first, then all followed him into the court- 
yard. They took possession, and the gates were closed. The 
next day the prince left to join the king at Ferrieres. The 
palace is appropriated to the Prussian wounded." 

By September 23 the Prussians had completed their in- 
vestment of Paris. They were only two hundred and fifty 
thousand men, but, disciplined as we can see they were by 
the letter I have quoted, they were more than a match for 
the four hundred thousand disorganized and undisciplined 
crowd within the walls of the capital, who called themselves 
soldiers. 

Strasburg surrendered on the very day that the Crown 
Prince of Prussia and his brilliant suite entered Versailles. 
Strasburg is the capital city of Alsace, and is considered 
the central point in the defence of the Rhine frontier. It 
has a glorious cathedral, and a library unsurpassed in its col- 
lection of historical documents of antiquity. It is an arch- 
bishopric, and had always been defended by a large garrison. 
With Paris, Lyons, Bordeaux, Marseilles, and Rouen, it had 
stood foremost among French cities. It contained, when 
invested, twenty thousand fighting men, and it was besieged 
at first by a corps of about sixty thousand. Its investment 
was one of the first acts of the Germans on entering France. 
Strasburg made an heroic resistance for six weeks, and sur- 
rendered on the day when Jules Favre was assuring Count 
Bismarck that France would never repay the services of its 
heroic garrison by consenting to give them up as prisoners 
of war. Before its surrender it suffered six days' bombard- 
ment. A bombardment is far more destructive to a small 
town than to a city of " magnificent distances " like Paris. 
By September 9, a week after Sedan, ninety-eight Prussian 
rifled cannon and forty mortars were placed in position and 



THE PRUSSIANS IN FRANCE. 28/ 

directed against the walls of Strasburg, while forty other 
pieces were to bombard the citadel. By September 1 2 the 
defences of the city were laid in ruins. Two weeks after, 
it surrendered. The Mobiles and National Guards, being 
Alsatians, were sent to their homes ; the remaining five 
thousand men, who were regular soldiers, were marched 
as prisoners of war into Germany. Hardly a house in 
Strasburg remained untouched by shells. The ordinary 
provisions were exhausted. The only thing eatable, of 
which there was abundance, was Strasburg pie, pate de foie 
gras, — the year's production of that delicacy having been 
stored in Strasburg for exportation. 

The famous library was greatly injured, but the cathedral 
was not materially hurt. A German who had been in Ham- 
burg during the time of the great fire, assured an English 
reporter that the scene of desolation in that city on the 
morning after the conflagration was less heart-rending than 
that presented by the ruined quarters of Strasburg when 
the Prussian conquerors marched in. And yet the in- 
habitants, had General Ulrich been willing, would have 
still fought on. 

Metz capitulated one month after Strasburg, Oct. 27, 
1870. Three marshals of France, six thousand officers, and 
one hundred and seventy- three thousand men surrendered 
to the Germans. Many were entirely demoralized ; but the 
Garde Imp^riale, a body of picked troops, was faithful to 
the last. 

" That a vast army which had given ample proof of military 
worth in the two great battles of Gravelotte, and which more- 
over possessed the support of the most important stronghold 
in France, should have permitted a scarcely superior enemy to 
hem it in and to detain it for weeks, making no earnest attempt 
to escape, and finally, at the conqueror's bidding, should have 
laid down its arms without striking a blow, would before the 
event," says an English military authority, " have seemed im- 
possible. It set the investing force free to crush the new-made 
Army of the Loire, and it occurred in the nick of time to prevent 
the raising of the siege of Paris, which the Germans had in 
contemplation." 



288 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Smaller places held out nobly, — Phalsbourg in Alsace, 
and Thionville and Toul, but above all Belfort. Garibaldi 
was there with a considerable body of Italians and a 
contingent of two hundred well-armed Greeks. There 
was great jealousy of Garibaldi and his Italians in the 
Southern army, and their outrageous conduct towards 
priests and churches set against them the women and the 
peasantry. 

Belfort never surrendered. But the army under Bour- 
baki, called the Army of the East, nearly a hundred thou- 
sand strong, suffered horribly in the latter days of the 
struggle. It was not included in the armistice made at 
the close of January, 1871, between Bismarck and Jules 
Favre, for Favre was in total ignorance of its position. 
Bourbaki attempted suicide. His soldiers, shoeless, tent- 
less, and unprovided with provisions, pushed into the defiles 
of the Jura in the depths of one of the coldest winters 
ever known in Europe, hoping to escape into Switzerland. 
Eighty thousand men made their way over the mountains ; 
fifteen thousand were made prisoners. A few escaped to 
their homes. A correspondent who saw them after they 
reached safety, said, — 

" In all of them, pinched features and a slouching gait told 
of gnawing hunger, while their hollow voices told of nights spent 
on snow and frozen ground. Some had tied bits of wood under 
their bare feet to keep them from the stones. For weeks none 
had washed, or changed their clothes. Their hands were black 
as Africans'. For three days neither food nor fodder had been 
served out to them, and before that they had only got one four- 
pound loaf among eight men." ' 

While men were thus suffering in the mountains, an 
event of the greatest political importance was taking place 
at Versailles. On January 19, a week before the capitula- 
tion of Paris, the king of Prussia received a deputation 
from the German Reichstag, offering him the imperial 
crown of Germany. 

The Federal States of the German Empire up to the close 



THE PRUSSIANS IN FRANCE. 289 

of the last century were three hundred and sixty ; many of 
these were only free cities or extremely small duchies or 
principalities. There was a German emperor and a Ger- 
man Diet. The latter met always at Frankfort. The em- 
peror might be of any family or of any religion. His 
successor was elected during his lifetime, to be ready in 
case of accident, and was called King of the Romans. The 
emperor was at first chosen by the princes at large, but in 
process of time the choice was made over to nine princes, 
called electors. After 1438, all emperors of Germany were 
of the house of Hapsburg, the royal family of Austria. 
This was not law, but custom. In the days of Napoleon I. 
the old German Empire was broken up. The title of Em- 
peror of Germany was discontinued, though he who would 
have borne it still held an imperial title as Emperor of 
Austria. The small German princes were mediatized ; that 
is, pensioned, and reduced from sovereign princes to the 
condition of mere nobles. In place of three hundred and 
sixty States there remained thirty-six States, composing the 
German Confederation. K new German Federal Constitu- 
tion was formed ; the States agreed to defend one another, 
to do nothing to injure one another, and to abstain from 
making war upon one another. There were practically 
seventeen votes in the Diet, some of the larger States hav- 
ing several, and many of the smaller States uniting in the 
possession of one. 

This Constitution also was swept away in 1866, after the 
brilliant campaign of Sadowa. 

The great desire of patriotic Germans was to consolidate 
Germany, — to make her strong ; and while Prussia, as- 
sisted by all the North German States and by Bavaria, 
Baden, Wiirtemberg, and Darmstadt, was fighting France, a 
new Federal Constitution was formed. 

The king of Prussia was chosen German emperor, and 
the imperial crown was to be hereditary in his family. 
There is a Diet, or Federal Congress, composed of two 
Houses, the Upper House being limited to sovereign 
princes or their representatives, the other, called the Reichs- 

19 



290 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

tag, being really the governing power of the nation. Each 
State is entitled also to its own legislature. 

In the Reichstag, Prussia has nearly two thirds of the 
votes ; and its power is much greater than that of our Con- 
gress at Washington. The emperor can veto its decisions 
only when they affect changes in the constitution. The Diet 
can dethrone any emperor if he is considered incapable of 
governing, or supposed to be dangerous to the Fatherland. 

Practically the power of Prussia seems boundless in the 
federation ; she enforces her military system on all Ger- 
many, and the smaller States submit to her, for the sake of 
strength and unity. 

On Jan. 18, 1871, a deputation of fifty members of the 
Reichstag came to the king of Prussia's headquarters at 
Versailles to implore him to accept the imperial crown of 
Germany. The world's attention was engrossed by the 
campaign which was then drawing to a close, and the offer- 
ing of the imperial crown to the Prussian sovereign formed 
only a dramatic episode in the history of the war. Fortu- 
nately, as the deputies passed Paris, shivering in their furs, 
while transported in carriages of all descriptions, the Pa- 
risians made no sortie to intercept them, and they reached 
Versailles in safety. 

The French seemed perfectly indifferent on the occasion. 
" Do' as you like," seemed to be the feeling. " Have an 
empire if you think proper. It is no concern of ours. We 
are glad to have got rid of our own." 

The day on which the deputies offered their great gift to 
King William was clear and bright. Before the prefecture 
at Versailles was planted the Prussian royal standard, — a 
black cross on a ground of gold and purple. Round the 
gateway stood all the Prussian soldiers who were off duty, 
waiting to see the deputies pass in. There was no music, 
but shots boomed from Paris from time to time. There 
was to be thenceforward one Germany, and one flag for the 
land of so many princes, who all waived their claims in 
favor of the greatest among them, — he who now stood 
conqueror in a foreign land. 



THE PRUSSIANS IN FRANCE. 29 1 

The chief room of the prefecture was filled with men in 
bright uniforms, with helmets, ribbons, and decorations of 
all kinds. The king stood near the fireplace, surrounded 
by princes and generals. The president of the North Ger- 
man Confederation appointed to address him had once be- 
fore, in 1849, offered the imperial crown to a Prussian 
king, who had declined it. Since then events had ripened. 
This time the king accepted what his countrymen desired 
he should receive from them. But he decHned to assume 
the title of emperor until the South German people should 
express their acquiescence, as the South German princes 
had already done. 

We may contrast the conduct of the Prussian king with 
the unwisdom of the French emperor. Both Napoleon 
III. and the Emperor William governed as autocrats ; but 
with what different men they surrounded themselves, and 
how differently they were served in their hour of need ! 
Yet Napoleon III. was lavish of rewards to his adherents, 
while the Emperor William was, to an excessive degree, 
chary of recompense. He seemed to feel that each man 
owed his all to his kaiser and his country, and that when 
he had given all, he could only say, in the words of Scrip- 
ture : " I have but done that it v/as my duty to do." 

When Jules Favre went to Versailles to negotiate with 
the German emperor and his chancellor for the surrender 
of Paris, he was accompanied, on his second and subse- 
quent visits, by a young officer of ordnance, Count d'He- 
rison, who attended him as a sort of aide-de-camp. Nothing 
could be less alike than the two men : Jules Favre, of the 
upper middle class in Hfe, deeply sorrowful, oppressed by his 
responsibility, and profoundly conscious of his situation ; and 
the young man whose birth placed him in the ranks of the 
jeiinesse doree, pleased to find himself in plenty and in good 
society, and allowing his spirits to rise with even more than 
national buoyancy, when, for a moment, the pressure of 
trouble was removed. D'Herison pubhshed an account of 
his experience while at the Prussian headquarters, which 
gives so vivid a picture of Count Bismarck, the great chan- 



292 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

cellor of the German Empire, that I here venture to repeat 
some parts of his narrative. He says, — 

" On January 23 I received a summons from Jules Favre. 
He seized me by both hands, and asked me to carry, early the 
next morning, a despatch to M. de Bismarck, and to get it into 
his hands before daybreak. No one was to know of this de- 
spatch except the German officer bearing a flag of truce, to 
whom I was to give it with my own hand. ' Then all is over ? ' 
I said to Jules Favre. 'Yes,' he answered, 'we have only bread 
enough for a few more days. God only knows what the people 
of Paris may do to us when we are forced to let them know the 
truth. We must do our best to guard against the disastrous 
consequences of their strong feeling of patriotism. The Gov- 
ernment does not intend to rid itself of its responsibilities, but 
its first duty is to provide bread for the capital.' 

"With some difficulty," continued D'Herison, "I reached 
Sevres, and the next morning before daybreak gave Jules 
Favre's letter to the Prussian officer. I sent back an express 
to Jules Favre with the news, and then went to Baron Roth- 
schild's desolated villa at Suresnes to wait the answer. Two 
hours later, came a message from the French officer command- 
ing the nearest outpost to say that a flag of truce had brought 
word that M. de Bismarck would see M. Jules Favre, and that 
a carriage would be in waiting on the left bank of the Seine 
to take him to headquarters." 

This knowledge of the negotiation at the French outposts 
was a disclosure that Jules Favre had desired to avoid. 

" When I brought Jules Favre the news," continues 
D'Herison, " he was greatly moved. His hands trembled 
so that he could hardly break the seal of the letter." 

Seeing that news of what was passing would most cer- 
tainly be brought in from the outposts, it seemed best that 
the French Minister for Foreign Affairs should start at once 
for the interview. There was in the courtyard a coupe with 
a handsome horse, once belonging to Napoleon III., and 
driven by one of his former coachmen. Jules Favre at once 
got into it, with his son-in-law and M. d'Herison. They 
passed with some difficulty through the Bois de Boulogne, 
the roads having been torn up and trees felled in every 
direction. On reaching a French outpost Jules Favre, 




JULES FAIRE. 



THE PRUSSIANS IN FRANCE. 293 

afraid of being recognized, concealed his face. Tlieir only 
means of crossing the Seine at Sevres was to take a small 
boat which had served General Burnside a few days before. 
But the Prussians had been making a target of it ever 
since, and it was riddled with bullets. Having bailed it out, 
however, with an old saucepan, they stuifed their handker- 
chiefs into the worst leaks, and crossed the Seine in safety. 

In a miserable old carriage, attended by a Prussian escort, 
Jules Favre was borne away to his terrible interview with 
Bismarck, leaving D'Herison behind. Favre did not come 
back for many hours. His first words to his aide-de-camp 
were : " Oh, my dear fellow, I was wrong to go without you. 
What have I not suffered? " 

He had been taken at once to a very modest house in 
Versailles, where Bismarck had his quarters. After the first 
salutations Jules Favre said that he came to renew the ne- 
gotiations broken off at Ferrieres. Here Bismarck inter- 
rupted him, saying : '' The situation is changed. If you 
are still going to say, ' Not an inch, not a stone,' as you 
did at Ferrieres, we may break off at once. My time is 
valuable, and yours too." Then suddenly he added : 
" Your hair has grown much grayer than it was at Ferrieres." 
Jules Favre replied that that was due to anxiety and the 
cares of government. The chancellor answered that the 
Government of Paris had put off a long time asking for 
peace, and that he had been on the eve of making an ar- 
rangement with an envoy from Napoleon III. He then 
explained that it would be easy for him to bring back the 
emperor and to force France to receive him ; that Napo- 
leon could collect an army of a hundred thousand men 
among the French prisoners of war in Germany, etc. ; and 
he added : " After all, why should I treat with you ? Why 
should I give your irregular Republic an appearance of 
legality by signing an armistice with its representative? 
What are you but rebels ? Your emperor if he came back 
would have the right to shoot every one of you." 

" But if he came back," cried Jules Favre, " all would be 
civil war and anarchy." 



294 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

'^ Are you so sure of that? " said the chancellor, "Any- 
how, a civil war in France could not affect Germany." 

" But, M. le Corate, are you not afraid of reducing us to 
despair, of exasperating our resistance? " 

''Your resistance!" cried Bismarck. "Are you proud 
of your resistance ? If General Trochu were a German, I 
would have him shot this evening. You have no right, for 
the sake of mere military vainglory, to risk the lives of two 
millions of people. The railroad tracks have been torn up, 
and if we cannot lay them down again in two days, we know 
that a hundred thousand people in Paris will die of famine. 
Don't talk of resistance, it is criminal." 

Jules Favre, put entirely out of countenance by Bis- 
marck's tone, merely insisted that in pity to France there 
should be no question of subjecting her to the ignominy of 
being again made over to her deposed emperor. Before 
parting, Bismarck requested him to write down such con- 
ditions of peace as seemed to him reasonable, in order 
that they might discuss them the next day.^ 

When that day came, the chancellor, having had inter- 
views with his sovereign and Von Moltke, submitted his own 
propositions. They were seven in number : — 

I. An armistice for twenty-one days. 

II. Disarmament of the French army, to remain in Paris as 
prisoners of war. 

III. The soldiers to give up arms and banners; officers to 
keep their swords. 

IV. The armistice to extend all over France. 

V. Paris to pay indemnity, and give up its forts to the 
Prussians. 

VI. The Germans not to enter Paris during the armistice. 

VII. Elections to be held throughout France for a National 
Assembly charged to consider conditions of peace. 

Some slight modifications were made in these hard terms, 
which were signed Jan. 28, 1871. 

^ My copy of D'Herison's book has a pencil note at this place, written 
by a friend then at Versailles : " Bismarck rode after Jules Favre when 
he set out on his return, and thrust into his carriage an enormous 
sausage." 



THE PRUSSIANS IN FRANCE. 295 

As aide-de-camp and secretary to the French minister, 
D'Herison was present at all the interviews between Bis- 
marck and his principal. When the terms proposed by 
Germany were reported by Jules Favre to the Committee 
of Defence, they were thought less severe than had been 
feared. 

The next morning Favre and D'Herison were at Versailles 
by dawn. Bismarck, who was an early riser, soon appeared, 
and took the minister and his aide-de-camp to his study. 
There the two men talked, and the secretary took notes of 
the conversation. 

Bismarck and Favre presented a great contrast. Bis- 
marck was then fifty-five years of age ; Jules Favre was six 
years older. Bismarck wore the uniform of a colonel of 
White Cuirassiers, — a white coat, a white cap, and yellow 
trimmings. He seemed like a colossus, with his square 
shoulders and his mighty strength. Jules Favre, on the 
contrary, was tall and thin, bowed down by a sense of his 
position, wearing a black frock-coat that had become too 
wide for him, with his white hair resting on its collar. He 
was especially urgent that the National Guard in Paris 
should retain its arms. He consented to the disarmament 
of the Mobiles and the army, but he said it would be im- 
possible to disarm the National Guard. At length Bismarck 
yielded this point, but with superior sagacity remarked : " So 
be it. But beHeve me you are doing a foolish thing. 
Sooner or later you will be sorry you did not disarm 
those unquiet spirits. Their arms will be turned against 
you." 

When the question was raised concerning the indem- 
nity to be paid by Paris, Bismarck said, laughing, that Paris 
was so great a lady, it would be an indignity to ask of her 
less than a milliard of francs ($200,000,000). The ran- 
som was finally settled at two hundred millions of francs 
($40,000,000). 

" The dinner-hour having arrived, the chancellor invited us,'' 
says D'Herison, "to take seats at his table. Jules Favre, who 
wanted to write out carefully the notes I had taken, begged to 



296 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

have his dinner sent up to him ; so I alone followed the chan- 
cellor to the dining-room, where about a dozen military and civil 
functionaries were assembled, but all were in uniform. The 
chancellor, who sat at the head of the table, placed me on his 
right. There was plenty of massive silver, belonging evidently 
to a travelling case. The only deficiency was in light, the table 
being illuminated by only two wax candles stuck in empty wine- 
bottles. This was the only evidence of a time of war." 

As soon as the chancellor was seated, he began to eat 
with a good appetite, talking all the time, and drinking al- 
ternately beer and champagne from a great silver goblet 
marked with his initials. The conversation was in French. 
Suddenly the chancellor remembered having met M. 
d'Herison eight years before at the Princess Mentzichoff's ; 
and their relations became those of two gentlemen who re- 
cognize each other in good society. 

The Parisians thought that D'Herison had been far too 
lively on this occasion ; but he feels sure that his sprightly 
talk and free participation in the good things of the table, 
formed a favorable contrast to the deep depression of Jules 
Favre at the same board the day before. '' M. de Bis- 
marck," he says, " is not at all like the conventional states- 
man. He is not solemn. He is very gay, and even when 
discussing the gravest questions often makes jokes, though 
under his playful sallies gleam the lion's claws." 

They talked of hunting. The chancellor related anec- 
dotes of his own prowess, and by the time they returned to 
Jules Favre, the French aide-de-camp and the Prussian prime 
minister were on the best terms with each other. But 
before long the chancellor gave a specimen of the violence 
of his displeasure. "Three times," says D'Herison, "I saw 
him angry, — once a propos of Garibaldi ; once when speak- 
ing of the resistance of St. Quentin, an unwalled town, 
which he said should have submitted at once ; and once it 
was my own fault." 

On the table stood a saucer with three choice cigars. 
The chancellor took it up and offered it to Jules Favre, 
who repUed that he never smoked ; " There you are wrong," 



THE PRUSSIANS IN FRANCE. 297 

said Bismarck ; " when a conversation is about to take place 
which may lead to differences of opinion, it is better to 
smoke. The cigar between a man's lips, which he must not 
let fall, controls his physical impatience. It soothes him 
imperceptibly. He grows more conciliatory. He is more 
disposed to make concessions. And diplomacy is made up 
of reciprocal concessions. You who don't smoke have one 
advantage over me, — you are more on the alert. But I have 
an advantage over you, — you will be more likely than I 
shall be to lose your self- control and give way to sudden 
impressions." 

The negotiation was resumed very quietly. With aston- 
ishing frankness the chancellor said simply and plainly what 
he wanted. He went straight to his point, bewildering 
Jules Favre, a lawyer by profession, who was accustomed to 
diplomatic circumlocutions, and was not prepared for such 
imperious openness. 

The chancellor spoke French admirably, " making use," 
says D'Herison " of strong and choice expressions, and 
never seeming at a loss for a word." But when the subject 
of Garibaldi and his army came up, his eyes began to flash, 
and he seemed to curb himself with difficulty. " I intend," 
he said, " to leave him and his followers out of the armistice. 
He is not one of your own people. You can very well leave 
him to me. Our army opposed to him is about equal to 
his. Let them fight it out between them." Jules Favre 
replied that this was impossible ; for though France had not 
asked Garibaldi for his services, and had in the first instance 
refused them, circumstances had made him general-in- 
chief of a large corps d'armee composed almost entirely of 
Frenchmen, and to abandon him would be indefensible. 
Then the anger of the chancellor blazed forth against 
Garibaldi. " I want to parade him through the streets of 
Berlin," he cried, " with a placard on his back : ' This is 
Gratitude ! ' " 

Here D'Herison interrupted his burst of anger by picking 
up the saucer from the table and holding it to his breast as 
beggars do at the church-doors. The chancellor caught 



298 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

his idea after a moment. He laughed, and Garibaldi, with 
his corps darmee, was included in the armistice. 

It was necessary, however, that a French general should 
come out to Versailles the next day and confer with 
Count von Moltke with regard to some military details. 
The old general who was chosen for that service was 
furious at the appointment, and behaved with such rude- 
ness that Bismarck requested that a man more courteous 
might replace him. 

In the course of the conversation Bismarck, who was al- 
ways breaking off upon side topics, rephed to an observation 
made by Jules Favre about the love of France for a repub- 
lic, by saying: "Are you so sure of that? — for I don't 
think so. Before treating with you, we naturally made it 
our business to obtain good information as to the state of 
public feeling in your country; and notwithstanding this 
unhappy war, which was forced by France upon Napoleon 
III., and notwithstanding the disasters of your armies, 
nothing would be easier, believe me, than to re-estabhsh 
the emperor. I will not say that his restoration would have 
been hailed by acclamations in Paris, but it would have been 
submitted to by the country. A plebiscite would have done 
the rest." 

Jules Favre protested. " Oh, you will become more in- 
clined to monarchy as you grow older," cried the chancellor. 
" Look at me. I began my public life by being a liberal ; 
and now, by force of reason, by the teachings of experience, 
and by an increased knowledge of mankind, I have learned, 
loving my country, wishing her good and her greatness, to 
become a conservative, — an upholder of authority. My 
emperor converted me. My gratitude to him, my respect- 
ful affection, date from the far-off time when he alone sup- 
ported me. If I am to-day the man you see me, if I have 
rendered any service to my country, I owe it all, as I am 
pleased to acknowledge, to the emperor." 

That night, as Jules Favre was returning to Paris to obtain 
from his colleagues the ratification of the armistice, Bis- 
marck proposed that firing should cease at midnight. Jules 



THE PRUSSIANS IN FRANCE. 299 

Favre assented, but asked as a courtesy that Paris might 
fire the last shot. 

That night the terms of capitulation were signed by all 
the members of the Committee of Defence. It is strange 
how the baptismal name of Jules predominated among them, 

— Jules Favre, Jules Ferry, Jules Simon, Jules Trochu. 
Trochu, however, did not sign, having resigned his post that 
he might not be called upon to do so. 

A few changes in the articles as at first drawn up were 
made. The Prussians did not insist, as Bismarck had done 
at first, that the cannon in the bastions should be hurled 
down, and regiments were permitted to retain their colors, 
though Von Moltke objected strongly to such concessions. 
They were granted, however, by the emperor, when the 
matter was referred to him, but in words more insulting 
than a refusal. " Tell the envoy of the French Government," 
he said, " that we have trophies enough and standards 
enough taken from French armies, and have no need of 
those of the army of Paris." 

Then, the capitulation being signed, the armistice 
began. General elections were at once held all over 
France, and the National Assembly met at Bordeaux. A 
Provisional Government, with M. Thiers at its head, was 
appointed, and peace was concluded. Alsace and Lorraine 
were given up to Germany, with the exception of the strong- 
hold of Belfort, which had never surrendered. The German 
arm.y was to enter Paris, but to go no farther than the Place 
de la Concorde ; and besides the two hundred millions of 
francs exacted from Paris, France was to pay five milliards, 
that is, five thousand millions, of francs, as a war indemnity, 

— a thousand millions of dollars. Germany was to retain 
certain forts in France, and her troops in them were to be 
rationed by the French until this money was paid. 

It was paid in an incredibly short time, chiefly by the 
help of the great Jewish banking-houses ; and the last 
of the Germans retired to their own soil in Septem- 
ber, 1872. 

But on March 13, 1871, the German army around Paris, 



300 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

after remaining a few hours in the capital, marched away 
towards home. 

The Assembly at Bordeaux proceeded at once to transfer 
itself to the late Prussian headquarters at Versailles ; but on 
March i8 a great rising, called the Commune, broke out in 
Paris, which lasted rather more than nine weeks, with a 
continued succession of horrors. 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE COMMUNE. 

nPHE Story of the Commune is piteous, disheartening, 
-^ shameful, and terrible. It seems as if during three 
months of 1871 ''human nature," as Carlyle says of it in 
his " French Revolution," " had thrown off all formulas, 
and come out hwnan / " It is the story of those whom 
the French call " the people," — we '' the mob," or " the 
populace," — let loose upon society, and society in its 
turn mercilessly avenging itself for its wrongs. 

By March 12, 1871, the Prussian soldiers had quitted the 
environs of Paris, and were in full march for their homes. 
Two of the detached forts, however, remained eighteen 
months longer in their hands. On March 20 the National 
Assembly was to begin its session at Versailles. The Prov- 
inces were very mistrustful of Paris, and the assembling of 
the deputies at Versailles was of itself a proof of the want 
of national confidence in the Parisians. 

When it was made known that the German army was to 
enter Paris, the National Guard of Belleville and Mont- 
martre stole cannon from the fortifications, and placed 
them in position in their own quarter on the heights, so 
that they could fire into the city. 

On March t8 General Vinoy, who had succeeded Trochu 
as miUtary commander of Paris, demanded that these can- 
non should be given back to the city. Many of them had 
been purchased by subscription during the siege, but they 
were not the property of the men of Belleville and Mont- 
martre, but of the whole National Guard. A regiment of 
the line was ordered to take possession of them, and they 



302 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

did so. But immediately after, the soldiers fraternized with 
the National Guard of Belleville, and surrendered their 
prize. An officer of chasseurs had been killed, and General 
Lecomte twice ordered his men to fire on the insurgents, i 
They refused to obey him. " General Lecomte is right," 
said a gentleman who was standing in a crowd of angry 
men at a street-corner near the scene of action. He was 
seized at once, arid was soon recognized as General Clement 
Thomas, formerly commander of the National Guard of 
Paris. He had done gallant service during the siege ; but 
that consideration had no weight with the insurgents. 
General Lecomte had been already arrested. " We will 
put you with him," cried the mob, — " you, who dare to speak 
in defence of such a scoundrel." Both the unfortunate 
generals were immediately imprisoned. 

At four p. M. they were brought forth by about one hun- 
dred insurgent National Guards ; Lecomte's hands were 
tied, those of General Thomas were free. They were 
marched to an empty house, where a mock trial took 
place. No rescue was attempted, though soldiers of the 
line stood by. The two prisoners were then conducted to 
a walled enclosure at the end of the street. As soon as 
the party halted, an officer of the National Guard seized 
General Thomas by the collar and shook him violently, 
holding a revolver to his head, and crying out, " Confess 
that you have betrayed the Republic ! " The general 
shrugged his shoulders. The officer retired. The report 
of twenty muskets rent the air, and General Thomas fell, 
face downward. They ordered Lecomte to step over his 
body, and to take his place against the wall. Another 
report succeeded, and the butchery was over. 

By evening the National Guard had taken possession of 
the H6tel-de-Ville, and the outer Boulevards were crowded 
by men shouting that they had made a revolution. On 
this day the insurgents assumed the name of " Federes," or 
Federals, denoting their project of converting the com- 
munistic cities of France into a Federal Republic. 

1 Leighton, Paris under the Commune. 



THE COMMUNE, 333 

In vain the Government put forth proclamations calhng 
on all good citizens, and on the Old National Guard, to 
put down insurrection and maintain order and the Republic. 
The Old Battalions of the National Guard, about twenty- 
thousand strong, had been composed chiefly of tradesmen 
and gentlemen ; these, as soon as the siege was over, 
had for the most part left the city. Bismarck's proposi- 
tion to Jules Favre had been to leave the Old National 
Guard its arms, that it might preserve order, but to take 
advantage of the occasion to disarm the New Battalions. 
As we have seen, all were permitted to retain their arms ; 
but the chancellor told Jules Favre he would live to repent 
having obtained the concession. 

The friends of order, in spite of the Government's procla- 
mations, could with difficulty be roused to action. There 
were two parties in Paris, — the Passives, and the Actives ; 
and the latter party increased in strength from day to day. 
Indeed, it was hard for peaceful citizens to know under 
whom they were to range themselves. The Government 
had left the city. One or two of its members were still in 
Paris, but the rest had rushed off to Versailles, protected by 
an army forty thousand strong, under General Vinoy. 

A species of Government had, however, formed itself by 
the morning of March 19 at the H6tel-de-Ville. It called 
itself the Central Committee of the National Guard, and 
issued proclamations on white paper (white paper being 
reserved in Paris for proclamations of the Government). 
It called upon all citizens in their sections at once to elect 
a commune. This proclamation was signed by twenty 
citizens, only one of whom, M. Assy, had ever been heard 
of in Paris. Some months before, he had headed a strike, 
killed a policeman, and had been condemned to the galleys 
for murder. The men who thus constituted themselves a 
Government, were all members of the International, — that 
secret association, formed in all countries, for the abolition 
of property and patriotism, religion and the family, rulers, 
armies, upper classes, and every species of refinement. 
Another proclamation decreed that the people of Paris, 



304 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

whether it pleased them or not, must on Wednesday, March 
2 2, elect a commune. 

In a former chapter I have tried to explain the nature 
of a commune. Victor Hugo wrote his opinion of it, 
when the idea of a commune was first started, after the 
fall of Louis Philippe in 1848. His words read like a 
prophecy : — 

" It would tear down the tricolor, and set up the red flag of de- 
struction ; it would make penny-pieces out of the Column of 
the Place Vendome ; it would hurl down the statue of Napo- 
leon, and set up that of Marat in, its place ; it would suppress the 
Academic, the ficole Polytechnique, and the Legion of Honor. 
To the grand motto of ' Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity,' it 
would add the words, 'or death.' It would bring about a 
general bankruptcy. It would ruin the rich without enriching 
the poor. It would destroy labor, which gives each of us 
his bread. It would abolish property, and break up the fam- 
ily. It would march about with the heads of the proscribed 
on pikes, fill the prisons with the suspected, and empty them 
by massacre. It would convert France into a country of 
gloom. It would destroy liberty, stifle the arts, silence thought, 
and deny God. It would supply work for two things fatal 
to prosperit}^, — the press that prints assignats, and the guil- 
lotine. In a word, it would do in cold blood what the men 
of 1793 did in the ravings of fever; and after the great hor- 
rors which our fathers saw, we should have the horrible in 
every form that is low and base." 

The party of the Commune has been divided into three 
classes, — the rascals, the dupes, and the enthusiasts. The 
latter in the last hours of the Commune (which lasted 
seventy- three days) put forth in a manifesto their theory 
of government ; to wit, that every city in France should 
have absolute power to govern itself, should levy its own 
taxes, make its own laws, provide its own soldiers, see to 
its own schools, elect its own judges, and make within 
its corporate limits whatever changes of government it 
pleased. These Communistic cities were to be federated 
into a Republic. It was not clear how those Frenchmen 
were to be governed who did not live in cities ; possi- 



THE COMMUNE. 305 

bly each city was to have territory attached to it, as in 
Italy in the Middle Ages. 

The weather during March of the year 1871 was very 
fine, and fine weather is ahvays favorable to disturbances 
and revolutions. 

The very few men of note still left in Paris desirous of 
putting an end to disorder without the shedding of blood, 
proposed to go out to Versailles and negotiate with M. 
Thiers, the provisional president, and the members of his 
Government. They were the twelve deputies of the De- 
partment of the Seine, in which Paris is situated, headed 
by Louis Blanc, and the inaires, with their assistants, from 
the twenty arrondissements. They proposed to urge on 
the Government of Versailles the policy of giving the 
Parisians the right to elect what in England would be 
called a Lord Mayor, and likewise a city council ; 
also to give the National Guard the right to elect its 
officers. 

This deputation went out to Versailles on the 20th of 
March, — two days before the proposed election for mem- 
bers of a commune. On the 21st, while all Paris was 
awaiting anxiously the outcome of the mission, there was 
a great '' order" demonstration in the streets, and hopes of 
peace and concord were exchanged on all sides. The 
next day, the order demonstration, which had seemed so 
popular, was repeated, when a massacre took place on the 
Place Vendome and the Rue de la Paix. Nurses, children, 
and other quiet spectators were killed, as also old gentle- 
men and reporters for the newspapers. One of the victims 
was a partner in the great banking house of Hottinger, well- 
known to American travellers. 

The most popular man at that moment in Paris seemed 
to be Admiral Seisset, who had commanded the brigade of 
sailors which did good service in the siege. He went out 
to Versailles to unite his efi'orts to those of the maires and 
the deputies in favor of giving Paris municipal rights ; but 
M. Thiers and his ministers were firm in their refusal. 

When this was known in Paris, great was the fury and 



306 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

indignation of the people. In vain had Louis Blanc en- 
treated the Assembly at Versailles to approve conciUatory 
measures ; and when that body utterly refused to make 
terms with a Parisian mob, M. Clemenceau said, as he 
quitted their chamber : " May the responsibility for what 
may happen, rest upon your heads." 

The mission to Versailles having been productive of no 
results, the election for a commune was held. The ex- 
tremest men were chosen in every quarter of the city, and 
formed what was called the Council of the Commune. It 
held its sittings in the Hotel- de-Ville, and consisted at first 
of eighty members, seventy of whom had never been heard 
of in Paris before. Its numbers dwindled rapidly, from 
various causes, especially in the latter days of the Commune. 
Among them were Poles, ItaHans, and even Germans ; two 
of the eighty claimed to be Americans. 

The first act of the Council of the Commune was to take 
possession of the H6tel-de-Ville and to celebrate the in- 
auguration of the new government by a brilliant banquet ; 
its first decree was that no tenant need pay any back rent 
from October, 1 8 70, to April, 1871,^ the time during which 
the siege had lasted. It lost no time in inviting Garibaldi 
to assume the command of the National Guard. This 
Garibaldi declined at once, saying that a commandant of 
the National Guard, a commander-in-chief of Paris, and 
an executive committee could not act together. " What 
Paris needs," he said, " is an honest dictator, who will 
choose honest men to act under him. If you should have 
the good fortune to find a Washington, France will re- 
cover from shipwreck, and in a short time be grander 
than ever." 

On April 3 the civil war broke out, — Paris against 
Versailles ; the army under the National Assembly against 
the National Guard under the Commune. The Prussians, 
from the two forts which they still held, looked grimly on. 

At the bridge of Courbevoie, near Neuilly, where the 
body of Napoleon had been landed thirty years before, a 
flag of truce was met by two National Guards. Its bearer 



THE COMMUNE 307 

was a distinguished surgeon, Dr. Pasquier. After a brief 
parley, one of the National Guards blew out the doc- 
tor's brains. When news of this outrage was brought to 
General Vinoy, he commanded the guns of Fort Valerien 
to be turned upon the city. 

At five A. M. the next morning five columns of Federals 
marched out to take the fort. They were under the com- 
mand of three generals, Bergeret, Duval, and Eudes. AMth 
Bergeret rode Lullier, who had been a naval officer, and 
Flourens, the popular favorite among the members of the 
Commune. The three divisions marched in full confi- 
dence that the soldiers under Vinoy would fraternize with 
them. They were wholly mistaken; the guns of Fort 
Valerien crashed into the midst of their columns, and 
almost at the same time Flourens, in a hand-to-hand 
struggle, was slain. 

Flourens had begun life with every prospect of being a 
distinguished scientist. His father had been perpetual 
secretary of the Academy of Sciences and a professor in 
the College de France, in which his son succeeded him 
when he was barely twenty-one. His first lecture, on the 
'' History of Man," created a great impression; but in 1864 
he resigned his professorship, and thenceforward devoted 
all his energies to the cause of the oppressed. In Crete 
he fought against the Turks. He was always conspiring 
when at home in Paris ; even when the Prussians were at 
its gates, he could not refrain. He was the darling of the 
Belleville population, whom in times of distress and trial he 
fed, clothed, and comforted. Sometimes he was in prison, 
sometimes in exile. " He was a madman, but a hero, and 
towards the poor and the afflicted as gentle as a sister of 
charity," said one who knew him. 

Of the three generals who led the attack on Mont 
Valerien, Duval was captured and shot ; Eudes and Ber- 
geret got back to Paris in safety. But the latter, in com- 
pany with Lullier, was at once sent to prison by the 
Central Committee, and a decree was issued that Paris 
should be covered with barricades. As the insurgents 



308 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

had plenty of leisure, these barricades were strong and 
symmetrical, though many of them were injudiciously 
placed. 

Whilst the fight of the 4th of April was going on with- 
out the gates, the Central Committee was occupied in issu- 
ing decrees, by which Thiers, Favre, Simon, — in short, all 
the legitimate ministers, — were summoned to give them- 
selves up to the Commune to be tried for their offences, 
or else all their property in Paris would be confiscated or 
destroyed. 

The failure of the expedition under Bergeret made the 
Parisians furiously angry. In less than a week some of the 
best-known priests in Paris were arrested as hostages. The 
churches were all closed after the morning services on 
Easter Day ; the arms were cut off from the crosses, and 
red flags were hung up in their stead. No one could be 
buried with Christian decency, or married with the Church's 
blessing. 

''The motto of the Commune soon became fraternity 
of that sort," said a resident in Paris, "which means arrest 
each other." Before the Commune had been established 
two weeks, many of its leading members, besides Lullierand 
Bergeret, had found their way to prison. 

A personage who rose to great importance at this 
period was General Cluseret. He called himself an 
American, but he had had many aliases, and it is not 
known in what country he was born. At one time he had 
been a captain in the Chasseurs d'Afrique, but was con- 
victed of dishonesty in the purchase of horses, and dis-- 
missed from the army. Then he came to the United 
States, and entered the service of the Union, by which he 
became a naturaUzed citizen. He got into trouble, however, 
over a flock of sheep which mysteriously disappeared while 
he had charge of them. Next he enlisted in the Papal 
Zouaves. After the Commune he escaped from Paris, and 
the Fenians chose him for their general. In their ser- 
vice he came very near capturing Chester Castle. The 
Fenians, however, soon accused him of being a traitor. 



THE COMMUNE. 309 

Again he escaped, fearing a secret dagger, and was 
thought to have found refuge in a religious community. 
Subsequently he served the Turks; and lastly, during 
the presidency of M. Grevy, at a time of great dissatis- 
faction in France, he was elected a deputy from one of 
the Southern cities. 

By April 7, Cluseret had, as some one expresses it. 
"swallowed up the Commune." He became for three 
weeks absolute dictator ; after which time he found himself 
in prison at Mazas, occupying the very cell to which he had 
sent Bergeret. 

Cluseret was a soldier of experience ; but Bergeret had 
been a bookseller's assistant, and his highest military rank 
had been that of a sergeant in the National Guard. He 
could not ride on horseback, and he drove out from Paris 
to the fight in which Flourens was killed. 

The official title of Cluseret and others, who were heads 
of the War Office during the Commune, was War Delegate, 
the committee refusing to recognize the usual title of Min- 
ister of War. 

Probably the best general the Commune had was a Pole 
named Dombrowski, an adventurer who came into France 
with Garibaldi. He was not only a good strategist, but 
a dare-devil for intrepidity. Some said he had fought 
for Polish liberty, others, that he had fought against it; 
at any rate, he was an advanced Anarchist, though in 
military matters he was a strict disciplinarian, and kept 
his men of all nations in better order than any other 
commander. 

When, after the first attack of the Communist forces on 
those of the Versailles Government, the guns of Fort Vale- 
rien opened on Paris, the second bombardment began. It 
was far more destructive than that of the Prussians, the 
guns from the forts being so much nearer to the centre of 
the city. The shells of the Versaillais fell on friend and foe 
alike, on women and on children, on homes, on churches, 
and on public buildings. Three shots struck the Arch of 
Triumph, which the Prussians had spared. 



310 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Such scenes as the following one, related by an American, 
might be seen daily : — 

"Two National Guards passed me, bearing a litter between 
them. 'Oh, you can look if you Hke,' cried one; so I drew 
back the checked curtain. On a mattress was stretched a 
woman decently dressed, with a child of two or three years ly- 
ing on her breast. They both looked very pale. One of the 
woman's arms was hanging down ; her hand had been carried 
away. ' Where are they wounded ? ' I asked. ' Wounded ! 
they are dead,' was the reply. ' They are the wife and child of 
the velocipede-maker in the Avenue de Wagram. If you will 
go and break the news to him, you will do us a kindness.' " 

The velocipede-maker may have been — probably was — 
a good, peaceable citizen, with no sympathy for disorder or 
anarchy; but doubtless from the moment that news was 
broken to him, he became a furious Communist. 

By order of General Cluseret every man in Paris was to 
be forced to bear arms for the Commune. His neighbors 
were expected to see that he did so, and to arrest him 
at once if he seemed anxious to decline. ''Thus, every 
man walking along the street was liable to have the first 
Federal who passed him, seize him by the collar and say : 
' Come along, and be killed on behalf of my municipal 
independence.' " 

It would be hardly possible to follow the details of the 
fighting, the arrests, the bombardment, or even the changes 
that took place among those high in office in the Council 
of the Commune during the seventy-three days that its 
power lasted; the state of things in Paris will be best 
exhibited by detached sketches of what individuals saw 
and experienced during those dreadful days. 

Here is the narrative of an English lady who was compelled 
to visit Paris on Easter Sunday, April 9, while it was under 
the administration of Cluseret.^ 

The streets she found for the most part silent and empty. 
There were a few omnibuses, filled with National Guards and 
men en blouse, and heavy ammunition-wagons under the 

1 A Catholic lady in " Red" Paris. London Spectator, April, 1S71 
(Living Age, May 13, 1871). 



THE COMMUNE. 



311 



disorderly escort of men in motley uniforms, with guns and 
bayonets. Here and there were groups of ^' patriots " 
seated on the curbstones, playing pitch-farthing, known in 
France by the name of " bouchon." Their guns were rest- 
ing quietly against the wall behind them, with, in many in- 
stances, a loaf of bread stuck on the bayonet. The sky 
was gray, the wind piercingly cold. The swarming life of 
Paris was hushed. There was no movement, and scarcely 
any sound. The shop-windows were shut, many were 
boarded up ; from a few hung shabby red flags, but the 
very buildings looked dead. She says^ — 

" I felt bewildered. I could see no traces of the siege, and 
all my previous ideas of a revolution were dispersed. I passed 
several churches, not then closed, and being a Catholic, I en- 
tered the Madeleine. The precious articles on the altar had 
been removed by the priests, but except the words ' Libert^,' 
'figalite,' 'Fraternity,' deeply cut in the stone over the great 
door, the church had not, so far, been desecrated. I went also 
to mass at Notre Dame des Victoires; but before telling my 
cabman to drive me there, I hesitated, believing it to be in a bad 
part of the city. ' There are no bad parts,' he said, ' except to- 
wards the Arch of Triumph and Neuilly. The rest of Paris is 
as quiet as a bird's nest.' The church was very full of men as 
well as women. It was a solemn, devout crowd ; every woman 
wore a plain black dress, every face was anxious, grave, and 
grieved, but none looked frightened. As the aged priest who 
officiated read the first words of the Gospel for the day, ' Be 
not afraid, ye seek Jesus who was crucified,' the bombardment 
recommenced with a fearful roar, shaking the heavy leathern 
curtain over the church door, and rattling the glass in the great 
painted windows. I started, but got used to it after a while, 
and paid no more attention to it than did others. While I was 
in church, the citizen patriot who was my cab-driver, had 
brought me three newspapers, one of them the journal edited by 
M. Rochefort, which said that it was earnestly to be hoped that 
the 'old assassin' M. Thiers would soon be disposed of ; that 
all men of heart were earnestly demanding more blood, and that 
blood must be given them. I also learned that the Commune 
would erect a statue to Robespierre out of the statues of kings, 
which were to be melted down for that purpose. In the Rue 
Saint-Honor6 I met a lady whom I knew, returning from the 



312 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

flower-market with flowers in her hands. ' Then no one,' I said, 
pointing to these blossoms, 'need be afraid in Paris?' 'No 
woman,' she answered, ' except of shells ; but the men are all 
afraid, and in danger. They are suspected of wanting to get 
away, but they will be made to stay and to fight for the 
Commune.' 

" Indeed, profound gravity seemed expressed on all men's 
faces, and as a body, the patriots looked to me cold, tired, bored, 
and hungry, to say nothing of dirty, which they looked, to a 
man. I had expressed a wish to see a barricade, so we turned 
into a small street apparently closed in by a neatly built wall 
with holes in it, through which I saw the mouths of cannon. 
About this wall men were swarming both in and out of uniform. 
They were all armed, and two or three were members of the 
Commune, with red sashes and pistols stuck in them, after the 
fashion of the theatre. As I looked out of my cab window, 
longing to see more, a cheerful young woman, with a pretty, 
wan infant in her arms, encouraged me to alight, and a young 
man to whom she was talking, a clean, trim, fair young fellow, 
with a military look, stepped forward and saluted me. He 
seemed pleased at my admiration of the barricade, and having 
handed a tin can to the young woman, invited me to come in- 
side. Thence I beheld the Place Vendome. I had seen it last 
on Aug. 15, 1868, on the emperor's fete-day, filled with the 
glittering Imperial troops. I saw it again, a wide, empty waste, 
bounded by four symmetrical barricades, dotted with slouching 
figures whose clothes and arms seemed to encumber them. . . . 
I thanked my friend for his politeness, and returned to my 
carriage. The young woman smiled at me, as much as to say ; 
' Is he not a fine fellow? ' I thought he was ; and there may be 
other fine fellows as much out of place in the ruffianly mass with 
which they are associated. 

" In the Rue de Rivoli I saw a regiment marching out to 
engage the enemy. Among them were some villanous-looking 
faces. They passed with little tramp and a good deal of shuffle, 
— shabby, wretched, silent. I did not hear a laugh or an 
oath ; I did not see a violent gesture, and hardly a smile, that 
day. The roistering, roaring, terrible ' Reds,' as I saw them, 
were weary, dull men, doing ill-directed work with plodding 
indifference. 

" I visited a lady of world-wide reputation, who gave me a 
history of the past months in Paris so brilliantly and epigram- 
matically that I was infinitely amused, and carried away the 
drollest impressions of L'Empire Cluseret; but her manner 



THE COMMUNE. 313 

changed when I asked her what I should say to her friends in 
England. ' Tell them,' she said, ' to fear everything, and to hope 
very little. We are a degraded people ; we deserve what we 
have got.' 

" In the street I bought some daffodils from a woman who 
was tying them up in bunches. As she put them into my hand, 
her face seemed full of horror. Seeing probably an answering 
sympathy in my face, she whispered : ' It is said that they have 
shot the archbishop.' I did not believe it, and I was right. 
He was arrested, but his doom was delayed for six weeks. 
That night the churches were all closed. There were no 
evening services that Easter day. 

" I may add that I saw but one bonnet rouge., which I had 
supposed would be the revolutionary headdress. It was worn 
by an ill-looking ruffian, who sat with his back to the Quai, his 
legs straddled across the foot-walk, his drunken head fallen 
forward on his naked, hairy breast, a broken pipe between his 
knees, his doubled fists upon the stones at either side of 
him." 

In the story of Louis Napoleon's abortive attempt at 
Boulogne to incite France against Louis Philippe's Govern- 
ment, we were much indebted to the narrative of Count 
Joseph Orsi, one of the Italians who from his earliest days 
had attended on his fortunes. The same gentleman has 
given us an account of his own experiences during the 
days of the Commune : — 

" One could not help being struck by the contrasts presented 
at that time in Paris itself: destruction and death raging in 
some quarters, cannon levelling its beautiful environs, while at 
the same moment one could see its fashionable Boulevards 
crowded with well-dressed people loitering and smiling as if 
nothing were going on. The cafes, indeed, were ordered to 
close their doors at midnight, but behind closed shutters went 
on gambling, drinking, and debauchery. After spending a 
riotous night, fast men and women considered it a joke to drive 
out to the Arch of Triumph and see how the fight was going 
on." 

The troops at Versailles, reinforced by the prisoners of 
war who had been returned from Prussia, began, by the 9th 
of April, to make active assaults on such forts as were held 



314 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

by the Federals. Confusion and despair began to reign 
in the Council of the Commune. Unsuccessful in open 
warfare, the managing committee tried to check the ad- 
vance of the Versaillais by deeds of violence and retaUa- 
tion. They arrested numerous hostages, and the same 
night the palace of the archbishop was pillaged. The pre- 
fect of police, Raoul Rigault, issued a decree that every one 
suspected of being a reactionnaire (that is, a partisan of the 
National Assembly) should be at once arrested. The de- 
livery of letters was suspended, gas was cut off, and with 
the exception of a few places where lamp-posts were sup- 
plied with petroleum, Paris was in darkness. 

The Commune also issued a decree that while all men 
under sixty must enter its army, women, children, and aged 
men could obtain passes to leave the city at the prefecture 
of police for two francs a head. The prefecture was be- 
sieged by persons striving to get these passes, many of 
whom camped out for forty- eight hours while waiting their 
turn. 

In the midst of this confused pressure on the prefect of 
police, Count Orsi took the resolution of visiting him. As 
a known adherent of the former dynasty and a personal 
friend of the late emperor, he did not feel himself safe. He 
therefore took the bull by the horns, and went to call on 
the terrible Raoul Rigault in his stronghold. He did not see 
him, however ; but after struggling for three hours in the 
crowd of poor creatures who were waiting to pay their two 
francs and receive a passport, he was admitted to the pres- 
ence of his secretary, Ferre. Ferre was writing as his 
visitor was shown in, and, waving his pen, made him stand 
where he could see him. When he learned his name, he 
said, — 

" Your opinions are well known to us. We also know that 
you have taken no active part against us. We fight for what 
we beheve to be just and fair. We do not kill for the pleasure 
of killing, but we must attain our end, and we shall, at any cost. 
I recommend you to keep quiet. As you are an Itahan, you 
shall not be molested. However, I must tell you that you have 



THE COMMUNE. 315 

taken a very bold step in calling on me in this place. Your 
visit might have taken a different turn. You may go. Your 
frank declaration has saved you." 

On Easter Sunday, as the English lady to whom allusion 
has been made, was leaving Paris, the population in the 
neighborhood of the Place de Greve was amusing itself by 
a public burning of the guillotine. It was brought forth 
and placed beneath a statue of Voltaire, where it was con- 
sumed amid wild shouts of enthusiasm. 

The Freemasons and trades unions sent deputies to 
Versailles to endeavor to negotiate between the contending 
parties. M. Thiers promised amnesty to all Communists 
who should lay down their arms, except to those concerned 
in the deaths of Generals Lecomte and Thomas, and he 
was also willing to give pay to National Guards till trade 
and order should be restored ; but no persuasions would 
induce him to confer on Paris municipal rights that were 
not given to other cities. On the 12th of May the Com- 
mune issued the following decree : — 

" Whereas., the imperial column in the Place Vendome is a 
monument of barbarism, a symbol of brute force and of false 
glory, an encouragement to the military spirit, a denial of inter- 
national rights, a permanent insult offered to the conquered by 
the conquerors, a perpetual conspiracy against one of the great 
principles of the French Republic, — namely. Fraternity, — 
the Commune decrees thus : The column of the Place Ven- 
dome shall be destroyed." 

Four days later, this decree was carried into effect. Its 
execution was intrusted to the painter Courbet, who was one 
of the members of the Commune. He was a man who, up 
to the age of fifty, had taken no part in politics, but had 
been wholly devoted to art. His most celebrated pictures 
are the "Combat des Cerfs " and the ''Dame au Perro- 
quet." He was a delightful companion, beloved by artists, 
and a personal friend of Cluseret, who had caused his name 
to be put upon the list of the members of the Commune. 

The column of the Place Vendome was one hundred and 



3l6 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

thirty-five feet high. It was on the model of Trajan's 
column at Rome, but one twelfth larger. It was erected by 
Napoleon I. to celebrate the victories of the Grand Army in 
the campaign of 1805. He had caused it to be cast from 
cannon taken from the enemy. When erected, it was sur- 
mounted by a statue of Napoleon in his imperial robes ; 
this, at the Restoration, gave place to a white flag. Under 
Louis Philippe, Napoleon was replaced, but in his cocked 
hat and his re dingo te ; but Louis Napoleon restored the 
imperial statue. 

"On May 16," says Count Orsi, "a crowd collected at the 
barricades which separated the Place Vendome from the Rue 
de la Paix and the Rue Castiglione. To the Place Vendome 
itself only a few persons had been admitted by tickets. At the 
four corners of the square were placed military bands. Ropes 
were fastened to the upper part of the column, and worked by 
capstans. The monument fell with a tremendous crash, causing 
everything for a few moments to disappear in a blinding cloud 
of dust. To complete the disgrace of this savage act, the Com- 
mune advertised for tenders for the purchase of the column, 
which was to be sold in four separate lots. This injudicious 
and anti-national measure inspired the regular army at Versailles 
with a spirit of revenge, which led them on entering Paris to 
lose all self-possession, so that they dealt with the insurrection 
brutally and without discrimination." 

It would be curious to trace the history of the various 
members of the Council of the Commune. A few have 
been already alluded to ; but the majority came forth out of 
obscurity, and their fate is as obscure. Eight were profes- 
sional journalists. Among these were Rochefort, Arnould, 
and Vermorel. Arnould was probably the most moderate 
man in the Commune, and Vermorel was one of the very 
few who, when the Commune was at its last gasp, neither 
deserted nor disgraced it. He sprang on a barricade, cry- 
ing : " I am here, not to fight, but to die ! " and was shot 
down. Four were military men, of whom one was General 
Eudes, a draper's assistant, and one had been a private in 
the army of Africa. Five were genuine working-men, 
three of whom were fierce, i'gnorant cobblers from Belle- 



z^- 



THE COMMUNE. 317 

ville ; the other two were Assy, a machinist, and Thiez, a 
silver-chaser, — one of the few honest men in the Council. 
Three were not Frenchmen, although generals ; namely, 
Dombrowski, La Cecilia, and Dacosta, besides Cluseret, who 
claimed American citizenship. Rochefort was the son of a 
marquis who had been forced to write for bread. Deles- 
chuze was an ex-convict. Blanqui had spent two thirds of 
his Hfe in prison, having been engaged from his youth up 
in conspiracy. He was also at one period a Government 
spy. Raoul Rigault also had been a spy and an informer 
from his boyhood. Megy and Assy were under sentence 
for murder. Jourde was a medical student, one of the best 
men in the Commune, and faithful to his trust as its finance 
minister. Flourens, the scientist, a genuine enthusiast, we 
have seen was killed in the first skirmish with the Versaillais. 
F^lix Pyat was an arch conspirator, but a very spirited 
and agreeable writer. He was elected in 1888 a deputy 
under the Government of the Third Republic. Lullier had 
been a naval officer, but was dismissed the service for 
insubordination. 

To such men (the best of them wholly without experi- 
ence in the art of government) were confided the destinies 
of Paris, and, as they hoped, of France ; but their number 
dwindled from time to time, till hardly more than fifty were 
left around the Council Board, when about two weeks be- 
fore the downfall of the Commune twenty-two of this 
remainder resigned, — some because they could not but 
foresee the coming crash, others because they would no 
longer take part in the violence and tyranny of their col- 
leagues. In seven weeks the Commune had four succes- 
sive heads of the War Department. General Eudes was 
the first : his rule lasted four days. Then came Chiseret ; 
the Empire Cluseret lasted three weeks. Then Cluseret 
was imprisoned, and Rossel was in office for nine days, 
when he resigned. On May 9 Deleschuze, the ex-convict, 
became head of military affairs. He was killed two weeks 
later, when the Commune fell. Cluseret was deposed 
April 30, — some said for ill-success, some because he was 



3l8 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

a traitor and had communications with the enemy, but 
probably because he made himself unpopular by an order 
requiring his officers to put no more embroidery and gold 
lace on their uniforms than their rank entitled them to. 

Rossel, who succeeded Cluseret, was a real soldier, who 
tried in vain to organize the defence and to put expe- 
rienced military men in command as subordinate generals. 
To do this he had to choose three out of five from men 
who were not Frenchmen. Dombrowski and Wroblewski 
were Poles, and General La Cecilia was an Italian. On 
May 9, after nine days of official life, he resigned, in the 
following extraordinary letter : — 

Citizens, Members of the Commune : 

Having been charged by you with the War Department, I 
feel myself no longer capable of bearing the responsibility of 
a command where every one deliberates and nobody obeys. 
When it was necessary to organize the artillery, the command- 
ant of artillery deliberated, but nothing was done. After a 
month's revolution, that service is carried on by only a very 
small number of volunteers. On my nomination to the minis- 
try I wanted to further the search for arms, the requisition for 
horses, the pursuit of refractory citizens. I asked help of the 
Commune ; the Commune deliberated, but passed no resolu- 
tions. Later the Central Committee came and offered its ser- 
vices to the War Department, I accepted them in the most 
decisive manner, and delivered up to its members all the docu- 
ments I had concerning its organization. Since then the Cen- 
tral Committee has been deliberating, and has done nothing. 
During this time the enemy multiplied his audacious attacks 
upon Fort Issy ; had I had the smallest military force at my 
command, I would have punished him for it. The garrison, 
badly commanded, took to flight. The officers deliberated, 
and sent away from the fort Captain Dumont, an energetic man 
who had been ordered to command them. Still deliberating, 
they evacuated the fort,^ after having stupidly talked of blowing 
it up, — as difficult a thing for them to do as to defend it. . . . 
My predecessor was wrong to remain, as he did, three weeks 
in such an absurd position. Enlightened by his example, and 
knowing that the strength of a revolutionist consists only in the 
clearness of his position, I have but two alternatives, — either 
to break the chains which impede my actions, or to retire. 



THE COMMUNE. 319 

I will not break my chains, because those chains are 3'ou and 
your weakness. I will not touch the sovereignty of the 
people. 

I retire, and have the honor to beg for a cell at Mazas. 

ROSSEL. 

He did not obtain the cell at Mazas. He escaped 
from the vengeance of his colleagues, and was supposed 
to be in England or Switzerland, while in reality he had 
never quitted Paris. He was arrested two weeks after 
the fall of the Commune, disguised as a railroad employee. 
He was examined at the Luxembourg, and then taken^ 
handcuffed, to Versailles, where he was shot at Satory, 
though M. Thiers, the president, made vain efforts to save 
him. 

The members of the Commune, who by the first week 
in May were reduced to fifty-three, met in the H6tel-de- 
Ville in a vast room once hung with the portraits of sove- 
reigns. The canvas of these pictures had been cut out, 
but the empty frames still hung upon the walls ; while at 
one end of the chamber was a statue of the Republic 
dressed in red flags, and bearing the inscription, " War to 
Tyrants.'' 

Reporters were not admitted, and spectators could be 
brought in only by favor of some member. The mem- 
bers sat upon red-velvet chairs, each girt \vith his red 
scarf of ofThce, trimmed with heavy bullion fringe. The 
chairs were placed round a long table, on which was sta- 
tionery for the members' use, carafes of water, and sugar 
for eau sucree. It was an awe-inspiring assembly ; " for the 
men who talked, held a city of two millions of inhabitants 
in their hands, and were free to put into practice any or 
all of the amazing theories that might come into their 
heads. Their speeches, however, were brief; they were 
not wordy, as they might have been if reporters had been 
present. Most of them wore uniforms profusely deco- 
rated with gold lace," and, says an Englishman who saw 
them in their seats, '^ one had only to look in their faces 
to judge the whole truth in connection with the Com- 



320 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

raune, — its causes, its prospects, and its signification. A 
citizen whom I had heard of as most hotly in favor of 
Press freedom, proposed in my hearing that all journals 
in Paris should be suppressed save those that were edited 
by members of the Council of the Commune. That there 
were three or four earnest men among them, no one can 
dispute ; but as to the rest, I can only say that if they were 
zealous patriots devoted to their country's good, they did 
not, when I saw them, look like it." ^ 

In the first week of May the Commune decreed the 
destruction of M. Thiers' s beautiful home in the Rue St. 
Georges. The house was filled with objects of art and 
with documents of historical interest which he had gathered 
while writing his History of the Revolution, the Consulate, 
and the First Empire. 

The Commune had removed some of these precious 
things, and sold them to dealers, from whom many were 
afterwards recovered ; but the mob which assembled to 
execute the decree of destruction, was eager to consume 
everything that was left. In the courtyard were scattered 
books and pictures waiting to feed the flames. '' The men 
busy at the work looked," says an Enghshman,'^ " like de- 
mons in the red flame. I turned away, thinking not of the 
man of politics, but of the historian, of the house where he 
had thought and worked, of the books that he had treas- 
ured on his shelves, of the favorite chair that had been 
burned upon his hearthstone. I thought of all the dumb 
witnesses of a long and laborious life dispersed, of all the 
memories those rooms contained destroyed." 

On the 1 6th of May, the day of the destruction of the 
column in the Place Vendome, a great patriotic concert 
was given in the palace of the Tuileries, which was 
thronged ; but " by that date, discord and despair v/ere 
in the Council of the Commune, and its most respectable 
members had sent in their resignation. Versailles every- 
where was gaining ground ; the Fort of Vauves was taken, 

1 Cornhill Magazine, 1871. 

2 Leighton, Paris under the Commune. 



THE COMMUNE. 321 

that of Mont Rouge had been dismantled, and breaches 
were opened in the city walls. The leaders of the insur- 
rection lost their senses, and gave way to every species 
of madness and folly. The army of Versailles soon entered 
the city from different points. The fight was desperate, 
the carnage frightful. Dombrowski, the only general of 
ability, was killed early in the struggle. Barricades were 
in almost every street. Prisoners on both sides were shot 
without mercy. The Communists set fire to the Tuileries, 
the H6tel-de-Ville, the Ministry of Finance, the Palace 
of the Legion of Honor. 

The rest of the story is all blood and horror. The most 
pathetic part of it is the murder of the hostages, which took 
place on the morning of May 24. and which cannot be told 
in this chapter. The desperate leaders of the Commune 
had determined that if they must perish, Paris itself should 
be their funeral pyre. 

It was General Eudes who organized the band of incen- 
diaries called " petroleuses " and gave out the petroleum. 
It was Felix Pyat, it was said, who laid a train of gun- 
powder to blow up the Invalides, while another member of 
the Commune served out explosives. 

On the night of May 24, the H6tel-de-Ville was in flames. 
The sm.oke, at times a deep red, enveloped everything ; the 
air was laden with the nauseous odors of petroleum. The 
Tuileries, the Palace of the Legion of Honor, the Ministry 
of War, and the Treasury were flaming like the craters of a 
great volcano. 

We have heard much of petroleuses. They appear to 
have worked among private houses in the more open 
parts of the city. Here is a picture of one seen by an 
Englishman : — 

"She walked with a rapid step under the shadow of a wall. 
She was poorly dressed, her age was between forty and fifty; her 
head was bound with a red-checked handkerchief, from which 
fell meshes of coarse, uncombed hair. Her face was red, her eyes 
blurred, and she moved with her eyes bent down to the ground. 
Her right hand was in her pocket; in the other she held one of 

21 



322 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

the high, narrow tm cans in which milk is carried in Paris, but 
which now contained petroleum. The street seemed deserted. 
She stopped and consulted a dirty bit of paper which she held 
in her hand, paused a moment before the grated entrance to a 
cellar, and then went on her way steadily, without haste. An 
hour after, that house was burning to the ground. Sometimes 
these wretched women led httle children by the hand, who werfe 
carrying bottles of petroleum. There was a veritable army of 
these incendiaries, composed mainly of the dregs of society. 
This army had its chiefs, and each detachment was charged 
with firing a quarter." 

The orders for the conflagration of public edifices bore 
the stamp of the Commune and that of the Central Com- 
mittee of the National Guard ; also the seal of the war dele- 
gate. For private houses less ceremony was used. Small 
tickets of the size of postage- stamps were pasted on the 
walls of the doomed houses, with the letters, B. P. B. {^Bo7i 
Pour BriUer) . Some of these tickets were square, others 
oval, with a Bacchante's head upon them. A ^efro/euse wa.s 
to receive ten francs for every house which she set on fire. 

All the sewers beneath Paris had been strewn with tor- 
pedoes, bombs, and inflammable materials, connected with 
electric wires. "The reactionary quarters shall be blown 
up," was the announced intention of the Commune. Merci- 
fully, these arrangements had not been completed when the 
Versailles troops obtained the mastery. Almost the first 
thing done was to send sappers and miners underground 
to cut the wires that connected electric currents with in- 
flammable material in all parts of the city. The catacombs 
that underlie the eastern part of Paris were included in the 
incendiary arrangement. 

When Paris was at last in safety, and the Commune sub- 
dued, would that it had been only the guilty on whom the 
great and awful vengeance fell ! 




MONSEIGNE UR DARB O \ 

{Archbishop of Paris.) 



CHAPTER XVI. 



THE HOSTAGES. 



ABOUT once in every seventy or eighty years some 
exceptionally moving tragedy stirs the heart of the 
civilized world. The tragedy of our own century is the 
execution of the hostages in Paris, May 24 and 26, 1871. 

At one o'clock on the morning of April 6. three weeks 
after the proclamation of the Commune, a body of the 
National Guard was drawn up on the sidewalk in the neigh- 
borhood of the Madeleine. A door suddenly opened and 
a man came hastily out, followed by two National Guards 
shouting to their comrades. The man was arrested at once, 
making no resistance. It was the Abbe Duguerry, cur^ of 
the Madeleine,^ — the first of the so-called hostages arrested 
in retaliation for the summary execution of General Duval, 
who had commanded one of the three columns that marched 
out of Paris the day before to attack the Versaillais. 

Both the cure of the Madeleine and his vicaire, the Abbe 
Lamazou, were that night arrested. The latter, who escaped 
death as a hostage, published an account of his experiences ; 
but he died not long after of heart disease, brought on by 
his excitement and suffering during the Commune. 

The same night Monseigneur Darboy, the archbishop of 
Paris, his chaplain, and eight other priests, were arrested. 
One was a missionary just returned from China, another was 
the Abbe Crozes, the admirable chaplain {auinonier) of the 
prison of La Roquette, — a man whose deeds of charity 
would form a noble chapter of Christian biography. 

1 Curi in France means rector ; what we mean by a curate or as- 
sistant minister is there called vicaire. 



324 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

When Archbishop Darboy was brought before the no- 
torious "delegate," Raoul Rigault, he began to speak, say- 
ing, " My children — " "Citizen," interrupted Rigault, 
"you are not here before children, — we are men!" 
This sally was heartily applauded in the publications of 
the Commune. 

As it would not be possible to sketch the lives and deaths 
of all these victims of revolutionary violence, it may be well 
to select the history of the youngest among them, Paul 
Seigneret.^ His father was a professor in the high school 
at Lyons. Paul was born in 1845, ^^^^ was therefore twenty- 
six years old when he met death, as a hostage, at the 
hands of the Commune. His home had been a happy and 
pious one, and he had a beloved brother Charles, to whom 
he clung with the most tender devotion. Charles expected 
to be a priest; Paul was destined for the army, but he 
earnestly wished that he too might enter the ministry. 
Lamartine's "Jocelyn" had made a deep impression on him, 
but his father havmg objected to his reading it, he laid it 
aside unfinished; what he had read, however, remained 
rooted in his memory. 

When Paul was eighteen, his father gave his sanction 
to his entering the priesthood; he thought him too deli- 
cate, however, to lead the life of a country pastor, and 
desired him, before he made up his mind as to his voca- 
tion, to accept a position offered him as tutor in a family 
in Brittany. 

Present duties being sanctified, not hampered, by higher 
hopes and aspirations, Paul gained the love and confidence • 
of the family in which he taught, and also of the neighbor- 
ing peasantry. " He was," says the lady whose children he 
instructed, "like a good angel sent among us to do good 
and to give pleasure." 

When his time of probation was passed, he decided to 
enter a convent at Solesmes, and by submitting himself 
to convent rules, make sure of his vocation. But before 
making any final choice, we find from his letters that " if 

1 Memoir of Paul Seigneret, abridged in the " Monthly Packet." 



THE HOSTAGES. 325 

France were invaded," he claimed "the right to do his 
duty as a citizen and a son." 

He entered the convent at Solesmes, first as a postulant, 
then as a novice. " The Holy Gospels," said his superior, 
" Saint Paul's Epistles, and the Psalms were his favorite 
studies, — the food on which his piety was chiefly nourished. 
He also sought Christ in history." 

Still, he was not entirely satisfied with life in a convent ; 
he wished to be more actively employed in doing good. 
He therefore became a student for the regular ministry, — 
a Seminarist of Saint-Sulpice. But when the Prussian armies 
were advancing on Paris, he offered himself for hospital ser- 
vice, as did also his brother. 

In a moment of passionate enthusiasm, speaking to that 
dear brother of the dangers awaiting those who had to seek 
and tend the wounded on the field of battle, he cried : " Do 
you think God may this year grant me the grace of yielding 
up my life to Him as a sacrifice ? For to fall, an expiatory 
sacrifice beneath the righteous condemnation that hangs 
over France, would be to die for Him." 

The war being over, he returned to the Seminary, March 
15, 1 87 1. On March 18 the Commune was declared, and 
Lecomte and Thomas were murdered ; shortly after this the 
Seminary was invaded, the students were dispersed, and the 
priests in charge made prisoners. Most of the young men thus 
turned out into the streets left Paris. Paul at first intended 
to remain ; but thinking that his family would be anxious 
about him, he applied for a pass, intending to go to Lyons. 
At the prefecture of police he and a fellow-student found a 
dense crowd waiting to pay two francs for permission to get 
away. They were shown into a room where a man in a 
major's uniform sat at a table covered with glasses and 
empty bottles, with a woman beside him. When he heard 
what they wanted, he broke into a volley of abuse, and as- 
sured them that the only pass he would give them was a pass 
to prison. Accordingly, Paul and his companion soon found 
themselves in the prison connected with the prefecture. 
The cells were so crowded that they were confined in a 



326 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

corridor with six Jesuit fathers and some of their servants 
and lay brethren. A sort of community life was at once 
organized, with daily service and an hour for meditation. 
Paul esteemed it a privilege to enjoy the conversation of the 
elder and more learned priests. He conversed with them 
about the Bible, philosophy, and literature. " He was 
ready," says a companion who was saved, " to meet a 
martyr's death ; but there was one horror he prayed to 
be spared, — that of being torn in pieces by a mob." 

On May 13, a turnkey announced to the priests that they 
were to leave the prefecture. " I fear," he said, " that 
you are to be taken to Mazas. I am not sure, but a man 
cannot have such good prisoners as you are in his charge 
without taking some interest in them." 

On being brought forth from their corridor, they found 
themselves in a crowd of priests (hostages like themselves) 
who were being sent to Mazas. The youth of the Seminary 
students at once attracted attention, and the Vicar-General, 
Monseigneur Surat, said : '' I can understand that priests 
and old men should be here, gentlemen, but not that you, 
mere Seminarists, should be forced to share the troubles of 
your ecclesiastical superiors." 

The transfer to Mazas was in the voitures cellulaires. 
They were so low and narrow that every jolt threw the 
occupant against the sides or roof. In one of these cells 
the venerable and infirm archbishop had been transferred 
to Mazas a short time before. 

Each prisoner on reaching Mazas was shut up in a tiny 
cell. Paul wrote (for they were allowed writing materials) : 

" I have a nice little cell, with a bit of blue sky above it, to 
which my thoughts fly, and a hammock, so that it is possible 
for me to sleep again. I hardly dare to tell you I am happy, 
and am trusting myself in God's hands, for I am anxious about 
you, and anxious for our poor France. I have my great com- 
fort, — work. I have already written an essay on Saint Paul, 
which I have been some time meditating. I am expecting a 
Bible, and with that I think I could defy weariness for years. 
A few days ago I discovered that one of my friends was next 
to me. We bid each other good night and good morning by 



THE HOSTAGES. 327 

rapping against the wall, and this would make us less lonely, 
were we oppressed by solitude." 

At the close of this letter he adds, — 

" I have at last received the dear Bible. You should have 
seen how I seized and kissed it ! Now the Commune may leave 
me here to moulder, if it will ! " 

On Sunday, May 21, the Versailles army began to make 
its way into Paris, and the Commune, seeing its fantastic 
and terrible power about to pass away, tried to startle the 
world by its excesses. Orders were sent at once to Mazas 
to send the archbishop, the priests, Senator Bonjean, sus- 
pected spies, and sergents de ville to that part of the prison 
of La Roquette reserved for condemned criminals. Paul 
and his friend the other Seminarist were of the number. 

Before the gates of La Roquette they found a fierce crowd 
shouting insults and curses. Many were women and chil- 
dren. "Here they come ! " the mob yelled. " Down with 
the priests ! shoot them ! kill them ! " Paul preserved his 
composure, and looked on with a smile of serene hope 
upon his face. " The scene was like that horror from which 
he had prayed to be saved. His terror was gone. His 
prayer had been answered." 

The prisoners on reaching La Roquette were first passed 
into a hall, where they found the archbishop and several 
priests. The former was calm, but he was ill, and his fea- 
tures bore marks of acute suffering. After an hour's delay 
the prisoners were locked into separate cells, from which 
real malefactors had been removed to make room for them. 

In the next cell to Paul was the Abbe Planchet. By stand- 
ing at the window they could hear each other's voices. The 
abbe could read Thomas a Kempis to his fellow prisoner, and 
they daily recited together the litany for the dying. 

One of the imprisoned priests was a missionary lately 
returned from China ; and when they met at the hours al- 
lowed for fresh air in the courtyard, Paul was eager to hear 
his accounts of the martyrdom and steadfastness of Chinese 
converts. '•' M. Paul," said an old soldier who was one of 



328 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

the hostages, '^ seemed to look on martyrdom as a privilege, 
regretting only the pain it would cause his family." 

On Wednesday, May 24, the execution of the archbishop 
and five others took place. Paul saw them pass by his 
window ; one of the escort shook his gun at him, and 
pointing it at the archbishop, gave him to understand what 
they were going to do. 

The next day, Thursday, May 25, the order came. 
" Citizens," said the messenger who brought it, " pay at- 
tention, and answer when your names are called. Fifteen 
of you are wanted." As each was named, he stepped out of 
the ranks and took his place in the death-row. Paul Sei- 
gneret was one of them. He seemed perfectly calm, and 
gently pressed the hand of his Seminary friend who was not 
summoned. 

In the courtyard they were joined by thirty-five ex- 
policemen, so-called hostages like themselves. The execu- 
tion was to take place in the Rue Haxo, at the farthest 
extremity of Belleville, and the march was made on foot, 
so that the victims were exposed to all the insults of the 
populace. It has been said that when they reached the 
Rue Haxo, where they were placed against a wall, Paul v/as 
thrown down while attempting to defend an aged priest, 
and was maltreated by the crowd ; but this account was 
not confirmed when, four days later, the bodies were taken 
from the trench into which they had been thrown : Paul's 
showed no sign of violence. His eyes were closed, his face 
was calm. His cassock was pierced with balls and stained 
with blood. He is buried at Saint-Sulpice. 

His father received the news of his death calmly. He 
wrote : " Let us bear our poor child's death as much like 
Christians and as much like men as we can. May his 
blood, joined to that of so many other innocent victims, 
finally appease the justice of God." But when, shortly 
afterwards, Charles died of an illness brought on by exces- 
sive fatigue in serving the ambulances, the father sank un- 
der the double stroke, and died fifteen days after his last 
remaining son. 



THE HOSTAGES. 329 

From the death of the youngest and the humblest of 
these ecclesiastical hostages, we will turn now to that of the 
venerable archbishop, and to his experiences during the 
forty-eight hours that he passed at La Roquette, after hav- 
ing been transferred to it from Mazas. 

With studied cruelty and insolence, a cell of the worst 
description was assigned to the chief of the clergy in 
France. It had been commonly appropriated to murderers 
on the eve of their execution. There was barely standing- 
room in it beside the filthy and squalid bed. The beds and 
cells of the other priests were at least clean, but this treat- 
ment of the archbishop had been ordered by the Commune. 

On the morning of May 23 the prisoners had been per- 
mitted to breathe fresh air in a narrow paved courtyard ; but 
the archbishop was too weak and ill for exercise ; he lay half 
fainting on his bed. In addition to his other sufferings he 
was faint from hunger, for the advance of the Versailles 
troops had cut off the Commune's supplies, and the hostages 
were of course the last persons they wished to care for. 
Pere Olivariet (shot three days later in the same party as 
Paul Seigneret, in the Rue Haxo) had had some cake and 
chocolate sent him before he left Mazas ; with these he fed 
the old man by mouthfuls. This was all the nourishment 
the archbishop had during the two days he spent at La 
Roquette. Mr. Washburne, the American minister, had 
with difficulty obtained permission to send him a small 
quantity of strengthening wine during his stay at Mazas. 
But a greater boon than earthly food or drink was brought 
him by Pere Olivariet, who had received while at Mazas, 
in a common pasteboard box, some of the consecrated 
wafers used by the Roman Cathohc Church in holy com- 
munion ; and he had it in his power to give the archbishop 
the highest consolation that could have been offered him. 

It had been intended to execute the hostages on the 23d ; 
but the director of the prison, endeavoring to evade the hor- 
rible task of delivering up his prisoners, pronounced the 
first order he received informal. 

The accursed 24th of May dawned, brilliant and beauti- 



330 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

ful. The archbishop went down in the early morning to 
obtain the breath of fresh air allowed him. Judge Bonjean, 
who had never professed himself a believer, came up to 
him and prayed him for his blessing, saying that he had 
seen the truth, as it were on the right hand of Death, and 
he too was about to depart in the true faith of a Christian. 

By this time the insurgents held Httle more of Paris than 
the heights of Belleville, Pere la Chaise, and the neighbor- 
hood of La Roquette, which is not far from the Place de 
la Bastille. The Communal Government had quitted the 
H6tel-de-Ville and taken refuge not far from La Roquette, 
in the Mairie of the Eleventh Arrondissement. 

At six in the morning of May 24th,i a second order came 
to the director of the prison to deliver up all hostages in 
his hands. He remonstrated, saying he could not act upon 
an order to deliver up prisoners who were not named. 
Finally, a compromise was effected ; six were to be chosen. 
The commander of the firing party asked for the prison 
register. The names of the hostages were not there. Then 
the list from Mazas was demanded. The director could 
not find it. At last, after long searching, they discovered 
it themselves. Genton, the man in command, sat down 
to pick out his six victims. He wrote Darboy, Bonjean, 
Jecker, Allard, Clerc, Ducoudray. Then he paused, rubbed 
out Jecker, and put in Duguerrey. Darboy, as we know, 
was the archbishop ; Bonjean, judge of the Court of Ap- 
peals ; Allard, head-chaplain to the hospitals, who had been 
unwearied in his services to the wounded ; Clerc and 
Ducoudray were Jesuit fathers ; Duguerrey was pastor of 
the Madeleine. Jecker was a banker who had negotiated 
Mexican loans for the Government. The next day the Com- 
mune made a present of him to Genton, who, after trying 
in vain to get a few hundred thousand francs out of him for 
his ransom, shot him, assisted by four others, one of whom 
was Ferre, and flung his body into the cellar of a half-built 
house upon the heights of Belleville. 

1 Macmillan's Magazine, 1873. 



THE HOSTAGES. 33I 

When the order drawn up by Genton had been ap- 
proved at headquarters, the director of the prison had no 
resource but to dehver up his prisoners. 

Another man, wearing a scarf of office, had now joined 
the party. He was very impatient, and accused the others 
roundly of a want of revolutionary spirit. He landed 
afterwards in New York, where his fellow-Communists gave 
him a public reception. 

One of the warders of the prison, Henrion by name, 
made some attempt to expostulate with the Vengeurs de 
Floiif-ens, who had been told off for the execution. " What 
would you have? " was the answer. "Killing is not at all 
amusing. We were killing this morning at the Prefecture 
of Police. But they say this is reprisal. The Versaillais 
have been killing our generals." 

Soon Henrion was called upon to open the fourth corri- 
dor. " I must go and get the keys," he answered. He 
had them in his hand at the moment. He went rapidly 
away, flung the keys into a heap of filth, and rushed out 
of the prison. By means of a twenty- franc gold piece that 
he had with him, he passed out of the gates of Paris, and 
sought refuge with the Bavarians at Vincennes. 

Meantime another bunch of keys was found, and the ex- 
ecutioners, led by Ferr^, Lolive, and M^gy, — that member 
of the Commune whom none of them seemed to know, — 
hurried upstairs. In the crowd were gamins and women, 
National Guards, Garibaldians, and others, but chiefly the 
Vengeurs de Floiwens, a corps of which an Englishman 
who served the Commune said : " They were to a man all 
blackguards," 

Up the prison stairs they swarmed, shouting threats and 
curses, especially against the archbishop, who was errone- 
ously believed by the populace of Paris to have had provi- 
sions hidden in the vaults of Notre Dame and in his palace 
during the siege. A turnkey was ordered to summon the 
six prisoners ; but when he found whom he was to call, 
he refused, and the officer in command had to call them 
himself. 



332 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

The archbishop's name was first. He came out of his 
cell at once, wearing his purple cassock. Then Gaspard 
Duguerrey was summoned. He was eighty years old. 
He did not answer immediately, and was called a second 
time. Next, L^on Ducoudray was called, — a Jesuit father, 
head of a college, a tall, fine- looking man. He came 
forth with a proud smile. Alexis Clerc, also a Jesuit father, 
stepped forth briskly, almost gayly. Then came Michel 
Allard, the hospital chaplain, — a gentle, kindly-looking 
man. The three weeks before his arrest had been spent 
by him in attending upon the wounded of the Commune. 
Finally the judge. Senator Louis Bonjean, was called. '' In 
a moment," he rephed ; " I am putting my coat on." At 
this, one of the leaders seized him. " You will want no 
coat where you are going," he cried ; " come as you are." 

The only one of the party who seemed to tremble was 
the aged acre of the Madeleine ; but his nervous tremor 
soon passed off, and he was calm like the others. As they 
went down the winding stairs, the archbishop (being first) 
stepped rapidly before the rest, and turning at the bottom, 
raised his hand and pronounced the absolution. After this 
there was silence among the prisoners. "The chaplain 
Allard alone," said one of the Commune, " kept on mut- 
tering something." He was reciting, half aloud, the service 
for the dying. 

Pere Ducoudray had his breviary in his hand. He gave 
it, as he passed, to the concierge of the prison. The captain 
of the firing party snatched it, and flung it on the fire. 

When the spot was reached where the shooting was to 
take place, the archbishop addressed some words of pity 
and forgiveness to the murderers. Two of the firing party 
knelt at his feet ; but he had not time to bless them before, 
with threats and blows, they were forced to rise, and the 
archbishop was ordered to go and place himself against 
the wall. 

But here, when the bitterness of death was almost passed, 
occurred a difficulty. Two of the leaders wanted to have 
the execution in a little inner courtyard, shut in by blank 



THE HOSTAGES. 333 

walls. So the procession was again formed, marched 
through long passages and up stairways, and halted while 
keys were searched for, before it came to the spot. On 
the way, a man crept up to the archbishop, uttering blas- 
phemies into his ear. The good man's mild look of reproof 
and pain so moved one of the sub-officers that he drove 
the man off, saying : " We are here to shoot these men, 
not to insult them." 

The six victims were at last placed in a line, with their 
backs to the wall. As Ferr^ was giving the order to fire, 
the archbishop raised his right hand in order to give, as his 
last act, his episcopal blessing. As he did so, Lolive 
exclaimed: ''That's your benediction is it? — now take 
mine ! " and shot the old man through the body with a 
revolver. All were shot dead at once, save M. Bonjean. 

There is now a marble slab in the litde court inscribed 
with their names, and headed : ^' Respect this place, which 
witnessed the death of noble men and martyrs." The 
warder, Henrion, was put in charge of the place, and 
planted it with beds of flowers. 

The execution over, the leaders searched the cells of 
their victims. In most of them they found nothing; in 
two were worn cassocks, and in the archbishop's was his 
pastoral ring. One of the party said the amethyst in it was 
a diamond ; another contradicted him, and said it was an 
emerald. The bodies lay unburied until two o'clock in the 
morning, when four or five of those who had shot them 
despoiled them, one hanging the archbishop's chain and 
cross about his own neck, another appropriating his silver 
shoe-buckles. Then they loaded the bodies on a hand- 
barrow and carried them to an open trench dug in Pere la 
Chaise. There, four days later, when the Versaillais had 
full possession of the city, they were found. The arch- 
bishop and the Abb6 Duguerrey were taken to the arch- 
bishop's house with a guard of honor, and are buried at 
Notre Dame. The two Jesuit fathers were buried in their 
own cemetery, and Judge Bonjean and the hospital chap- 
lain sleep in honored graves m Pere la Chaise. 



334 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

After these executions a large number of so-called " hos- 
tages," — ecclesiastics, soldiers of the line, s er gents de ville, 
and police agents remained shut up in La Roquette. It 
was Saturday, May 27, the day before Whit Sunday. Says 
the Abb6 Lamazou, — 

" It was a few minutes past three, and I was kneeling in my 
cell saying my prayers for the day, when I heard bolts rattling 
in the corridor. We were no longer locked in with keys. Sud- 
denly the door of my cell was thrown open, and a voice cried : 
'Courage! our time has come.' 'Yes, courage!' I answered. 
' God's will be done.' I had on my ecclesiastical habit, and 
went out into the corridor. There I found a mixed crowd of 
prisoners, priests, soldiers, and National Guards. The priests 
and the National Guards seemed resigned to their fate, but the 
soldiers, who had fought the Prussians, could not believe it 
was intended to shoot them. Suddenly a voice, loud as a trum- 
pet, rose above the din. ' Friends,' it cried, ' hearken to a man 
who desires to save you. These wretches of the Commune 
have killed more than enough people. Don't let yourselves be 
murdered ! Join me. Let us resist. Sooner than give you up 
I will die with you I ' The speaker was Poiret, one of the 
warders of the prison. He had been horrified by what had 
been done already, and when ordered by his superiors to give 
up the prisoners in his corridor to a yelling crowd, he had 
shut the doors on the third story behind him, and was advis- 
ing us, at the risk of his own life, to organize resistance." 

The abb^ joined him with, " Don't let us be shot, my 
friends ; let us defend ourselves. Trust in God ; he is on 
our side ! " 

But many hesitated. " Resistance is mere madness," 
they said ; and a soldier shouted, '' They don't want to kill 
us; they want the priests ! Don't let us lose our lives 
defending the7?t ! " 

"The sergents de ville in the story below you," cried 
Poiret, " are going to defend themselves. They are mak- 
ing a barricade across the door of their corridor. We have 
no arms, but we have courage. Don't let us be shot down 
by the rabble." 

It was proposed to make a hole in the floor, and so to 



THE HOSTAGES. 



335 



communicate with the sei^gents de ville. The prisoners 
armed themselves with boards and iron torn from their bed- 
steads, and in five minutes had made an opening through 
the floor. A non-commissioned officer from below climbed 
through it, and arranged with Poiret the plan of defence. 

By this time the inner courtyard of the prison was in- 
vaded by a rough and squalid crowd, come to take a hand 
in whatever murder or mischief might be done. The be- 
sieged put mattresses before their windows for protection. 
The man who led the mob was one Pasquier, a murderer 
who had been in a condemned cell in La Roquette till let 
out by the general jail-delivery of the Commune. 

Two barricades were built like that on the floor below. 
Pasquier and some of his followers had burst open the outer 
door, and were endeavoring to burn both the prison and 
the prisoners. " Never fear," cried a corporal who had 
superintended the hasty erection of the barricades ; '' I put 
nothing combustible into them. They can't burn floor 
tiles and wire mattresses. Bring all the water you can." 

The crowd continued to shout threats. The battery 
from Pere la Chaise, they cried, was coming ; and often 
a voice would shout, " Soldiers of the Loire, surrender ! 
We will not hurt you. We will set you at liberty ! " A 
few soldiers trusted this promise, and as soon as they got 
into the crowd were massacred. 

In the midst of the tumult came a sudden lull ; the be- 
sieged could see that something strange had taken place. 
The crowd had been informed that the Government, alarmed 
by the advance of the Versailles troops, had abandoned its 
headquarters at the mairie of the Eleventh Arrondissement, 
and had gone to Belleville. Amazed and confused by this 
intelligence, the mob followed' its leaders. Only a few 
minutes before it left, two guns and a mortar had been 
brought to fire on the prison ; they were now dragged away 
in the wake of the Government. 

The criminal prisoners at La Roquette were in a state 
of great excitement. They had been liberated, and such 
weapons as could be found were put into their hands ; but 



336 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

they were not inclined either to kill their fellow- captives or 
to fight for the Commune. They hastily made off, shout- 
ing, " Vive la Commune ! Vive la Republique ! " 

By this time the prison director and his officials had 
disappeared. The prison doors were open. Then came 
another danger : soldiers of the Commune, fleeing from the 
vengeance of the Versaillais, might seek refuge in the prison. 
With much difficulty the Abbe Lamazou persuaded Poiret 
and some other warders who had stood with him, to close 
the gates till the arrival of troops from Versailles. It was 
still more diflicult, now that a way was open to escape, to 
persuade his fellow-captives to remain in prison. Some 
priests would not take his advice, among them Monseigneur 
Surat, the vicar-general. He had secured a suit of citizen's 
clothes, and hoped to escape in safety. In vain the Abbe 
Lamazou called out to him, " To go is certain death ; to 
stay is possible safety." He was killed most cruelly, 
together with two priests and a layman. 

At eleven o'clock at night, firing seemed to cease in the 
city, but outside of the prison the maddened crowd con- 
tinued all night howling insults and curses. Hours seemed 
ages to the anxious and now famished captives, shut up in 
the great building. The barricade of the Rue de la Ro- 
quette was near them, still defended by insurgents ; but in 
the early dawn it was abandoned, and shortly after, a bat- 
talion of marines took possession of La Roquette. The 
resistance of the prisoners, which had seemed at first so 
desperate, had proved successful. 

Innumerable other anecdotes have found their way into 
print concerning the last hours of the Commune ; but I 
will rather tell of Megy, the member of the Council who, 
in his scarf of office, animated the party that slew the arch- 
bishop and his five companions. 

He reached New York in 1878, and, as I said, was re- 
ceived with an ovation by a colony of escaped Communists 
who had settled on our shores. A reporter connected with 
the New York " World " called upon Megy, and here is his 
account of the interview : — 



THE HOSTAGES. 337 

"' I was born in Paris, in 1844,' said the ex-member of tlie 
Commune, lighting a cigar ; ' I went through a primary school, 
and learned but little. I was apprenticed to a machinist. 
When I was twenty I found work on the Suez Canal. I was 
already a member of a secret society organized against the 
Empire, with Blanqui at its head. In 1866 I came back to 
Paris, and persuaded all my fellow-workmen in the establish- 
ment where I was employed to become conspirators. We 
waited for a good opportunity to commence an insurrection. 
Some of us wanted to begin when Pierre Bonaparte murdered 
Victor Noir; but it was put off till February 7, when about three 
thousand of us rushed into the streets, began raising barri- 
cades, and proclaimed a Republic. The next day two thousand 
republicans were arrested. On February 11 six police agents 
came to my house at a quarter past five in the mornmg, 1 had 
a pistol, and when the first one entered my room to arrest me, 
I shot him dead. You should have seen how the others scam- 
pered downstairs. I am glad I killed him. But five minutes 
after, I was overpowered, bound, and taken to prison. I was 
condemned to twenty years in New Caledonia, with hard labor. 
I was sent to Toulon, but before my embarkation the Republic 
was proclaimed, and a decree of the Government set me at lib- 
erty. I came to Paris, and was named a member of the Munici- 
pal Council. In October, 1870, during the siege, an order was 
passed for my arrest because I endeavored to deprive General 
Trochu of his command. I hid myself, enlisted under a false 
name, and fought the Prussians. Then I went to the South of 
France, and waited to see what would happen. I was there 
when the Commune was proclaimed. I arrested the prefect of 
Marseilles on my own responsibility, and put myself in his 
place. I was prefect of Marseilles for eight days. Early in 
April I made my way to Paris, was made a general, and put in 
charge of Fort Issy.^ When Fort Issy fell, I was made com- 
mander-in-chief on the left bank of the Seine. I ordered the 
Palace of the Legion of Honor to be set on fire ; I defended 
the barricades on the Boulevard of Magenta; and when I left 
them on May 24, I found that Ferre and Deleschuze had given 
orders to shoot the hostages because the troops of Thiers had 
shot eight of our officers.' 

" ' Did you approve that order t ' " asked the " World's " re- 
porter. 

1 General Rossel gave his opinion of the officers in command at 
Fort Issy in his letter to the Commune. 

22 



338 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

"'Yes; why not? Of course I approved it. I went at once 
to La Roquette, to be present at the execution. We were one 
hundred and fifty men, but one hundred and twenty of them 
slunk away, and only thirty remained for the work we came for.' 

" ' And what did you do ? ' 

"'^<2 foi! I don't particularly care to say what I did; it 
might injure me here where I have got work. We called out 
the men we came to shoot, and we shot them as that kind of 
thing is generally done. We took them down into a court- 
yard, put them against a wall, and gave the order to fire ; that 
was all.' 

"After a minute's silence, Megy added: 'It was all M. 
Thiers' fault. We offered to give him up the hostages if he 
would give us Blanqui ; but he refused, and so we shot them. 
After the execution I fought to the last. I escaped from Paris 
in a coal-cart, and went to Geneva. I have had work in 
London and in Birmingham, and now I have got work in New 
York.'" 

He went on to affirm that there was a large colony 
of Communists in that city ; that America needed revo- 
lutionizing as much as France ; that Cardinal McCloskey 
might find himself in the same position as Monseigneur 
Darboy ; and so on. 

I have quoted this interview with Megy at some length, 
because it shows the Communists painted by one of their 
own number. Before the reporter left him, he chanced 
to pronounce the name of Mr. Washburne. " Washburne 
is a liar and a cur," cried Megy, angrily. " Before the 
Commune ended, some of our people asked him what the 
Versailles Government would do with us if we surrendered 
or were conquered. ' 1 assure you,' he said, ' you would 
be shot.' During the siege of Paris, Washburne was a Ger- 
man spy. He is a villanous old rascal." 

In studying the history of the Commune, it is desirable 
to remember dates. The whole affair lasted seventy-three 
days. On March 1 8 the guns on Montmartre were taken by 
the populace. Generals Lecomte and Thomas were shot, and 
the Commune was proclaimed. MiKtary operations were 
begun April 4. On April 9 Fort Valerien began to throw 
shells into Paris. From that day forward, the Versailles 



THE HOSTAGES. 339 

troops continued to advance, taking possession one by one 
of the forts and the positions of the Federals. On Sunday, 
May 2 1, the Versailles troops began to enter Paris, and 
fought their way steadily from street to street till Sunday, 
May 2 7, when all was over. The hostages were not hos- 
tages in the true sense of the word ; they had not been 
given up in pledge for the performance of any promise. 
They were persons seized for purposes of intimidation and 
retaliation, as in 1826 the Turks seized the most ^^rominent 
Christians in Scio. 

During the last five days of the Commune, Dombrowski, 
its only general with military capacity, was killed, — it is 
supposed, by one of his own men. The Tuileries, the 
H6tel-de-Ville, and numerous other buildings were fired, 
the Dominican Brothers were massacred, and the executions 
in the Rue Haxo took place, besides others in other parts 
of Belleville and at the Prefecture. One of the most 
diabolical pieces of destruction attempted was that of the 
Grand Livre. 

The Grand Livre is the book kept in the French Treas- 
ury in which are inscribed the names and accounts of all 
those who hold Government securities ; and as the French 
Government is the proprietor of all railroads, telegraph 
systems, and many other things that in England and the 
United States are left to private enterprise, the loss of the 
Grand Livre would have involved thousands upon thou- 
sands of families in ruin. For a man to have his name 
on the Grand Livre is to constitute him what is called 
a rentier, rentes being the French word for dividends from 
the pubhc funds. 

The Grand Livre is kept at the Ministry of Finance ; 
that building Ferre ordered to be summarily destroyed, 
uttering the words, " Flambez Finances." The building was 
accordingly set on fire the day before the Commune fell ; 
and for some days after, it was thought throughout all 
France that the Grand Livre had perished. By heroic 
exertions some of it was saved, the officials in charge of 
it rushing into the flames and rescuing that portion of it 



340 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

which contained the names of living property-holders, 
while they let the records of past generations burn. 

There was in existence a duplicate copy of the Grand 
Livre, though this was known only to the higher officials 
of the Treasury. It was kept in a sort of register's office 
not far from the Tuileries, and was in the care of a 
M. Chazal. When the Tuileries and the Treasury were 
on fire, the object of M. Chazal and of all who knew of 
the precious duplicate was to save it, in case the build- 
ing in which it was deposited should share in the 
conflagration. 

Of course the Grand Livre is of vast bulk. This copy 
was contained in great bundles of loose sheets. Luckily, 
these papers were in stout oaken boxes on the ground- 
floor of a detached building opening on a courtyard. The 
Versailles troops had reached the spot, and ninety sappers 
and miners, with seven brave firemen, were at work with 
water-buckets attempting to save the main building, which 
was blazing fiercely when M. Chazal arrived. Already the 
detached building in which the precious duplicate was 
stored was on fire. There was no place to which he could 
safely remove the precious papers, no means of transport 
to carry them away. 

During the siege orders had been given to have large 
piles of sand placed in the courtyards of all public build- 
ings, to smother shells should any fall there. There were 
three of these sand-piles lying in the yard of this record, 
office. In them deep trenches were rapidly dug, and the 
boxes were buried. Then the pile was covered with all' 
the incombustible rubbish that could be collected ; and 
had the Grand Livre been really destroyed, as for some 
days it was believed to have been, every Government 
creditor would have found his interests safe, through the 
exertions of M. Chazal and the intrepid band who worked 
under him. 

In somewhat the same manner the gold and silver in 
the vaults of the Bank of France were saved from pillage. 
The narrow staircase leading to the vaults, down which 



THE HOSTAGES. 34 1 

only one man could pass at a time, was by order of the 
directors filled up with sand during the siege. 

Though my readers may be weary of sad tales of mas- 
sacre, that of the Dominicans of Arceuil remains to be 
told. Their convent was in the suburbs of Paris ; it had 
been turned by them into a hospital during the siege, and 
it continued to be so used during the Commune. After 
the fall of Fort Issy, the insurgent troops made their head- 
quarters not far from the convent. They were com- 
manded by a general of some ability, but of ferocious 
character, named Serizier. He was in the habit of saying, 
as he looked from his window into the garden of the Do- 
minicans, " Those rascals ought to be roasted alive." On 
May 1 7 the roof of the building in which he lived caught 
fire. The Dominicans tucked up their gowns and did 
their best to put it out. When all was over, they were 
ordered to wait upon the general. They supposed that they 
were going to be thanked for their exertions, and were 
amazed at finding themselves accused of having set the 
building on fire as a signal to the Versaillais. The next 
morning a battalion of Communist soldiers surrounded 
their convent. The prior, his monks, pupils, and ser\'ants, 
were arrested and marched to a casemate of a neighboring 
fort. Their convent was stripped of everything. The 
building, however, was saved by a 7'use on the part of an 
officer of the Commune, one of the better class. They 
were two days without food, and were then driven into 
Paris like a flock of sheep, their black-and-white dress 
exposing them to all the insults and ribaldry of the excited 
multitude ; for the Versaillais were in Paris, and hope, 
among those who knew the situation, was drawing to an end. 
That night the Dominicans were confined in a prison on 
the Avenue d'ltalie, where a friend of Serizier's (known as 
Bobeche) was instructed what to do with them. During 
the morning, however, Bobeche went to a drinking saloon, 
and while there the man he left in charge received orders 
to send the priests to work on a barricade. He affected 
to misunderstand the order, and sent, instead, fifteen Na- 



342 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

tional Guards imprisoned for insubordination. When Bo- 
beche came back, half-drunk, he was furious. " What ! 
was the blood of priests to be spared, and that of patriots 
imperilled at a post of danger?" Before long the order 
was repeated. ■" We will tend your wounded, General," 
said the prior, '' we will go after them under fire, but we 
will not do the work of soldiers for you." At this, sol- 
diers were called out to shoot the Dominicans. They 
were reluctant to obey, and Serizier dared not risk dis- 
obedience. The fathers were remanded to prison, but 
were soon called out one by one. Some volunteers had 
been found willing to do the shooting, among them two 
women, the fiercest of the band. As the fathers came 
into the street, all were shot at, but some were un- 
touched; and soon succeeded a dreadful scene. Round 
and round the open square, and up side streets, they were 
hunted. Four of the twenty escaped. Men laughed and 
women clapped their hands at seeing the priests run. 
Then Serizier went back to the prison, and was making 
preparations to shoot the remaining prisoners, who were 
laymen, when one of his subordinates leaned over him 
and whispered that the troops of Versailles were at hand. 
He dropped his papers and made off. The troops came 
on, and picked up the bodies of the dead Dominicans. 
Serizier was not arrested till some months after, when the 
wife of one of his victims, who had dogged him constantly 
after her husband's death, discovered him in disguise and 
gave him up to justice. 

The Prefecture of Police, which stands upon an island in 
the Seine, in the heart of Paris, had in those days a small 
prison in its main building, and an annex for women. 
These prisons were full of prisoners, — reactionnaires, as 
they were called in the last days of the struggle. 

On May 26, as has been said, nothing remained for the 
Commune to do but mischief. Raoul Rigault was busy, 
with his corps of Vengeurs de Floui^ens, getting through as 
many executions as possible ; Felix Pyat was organizing 
underground explosions, Ferre, the destruction of public 



THE HOSTAGES. 343 

buildings. A gentleman ^ confined in the women's part of 
the Prefecture, chancing to look down from a high window 
on the offices of the main building, saw beneath him eight 
men in the uniform of the Commune, one of them wearing 
much gold lace, who were saturating the window-frames 
with something from a bottle, and bedaubing other wood- 
work with mops dipped in a bucket that he presumed con- 
tained petroleum. Their caps were pulled low over their 
eyes, as if they did not wish to be recognized. At last he 
saw the officer strike a match and apply it to the wood- 
work, which caught fire immediately. Then rose fright- 
ful shrieks from the prisons both of the men and the 
women, for many others had seen what was going on. 
An earnest appeal to a turnkey to go to the director of 
the prison and represent to him that all his prisoners would 
be burned, was met by the answer that he did not take 
orders from prisoners. But all turnkeys were not Com- 
munists, though Communist officials were set over them. 
Some of them took advantage of the confusion to look into 
the cells, and speak hope and comfort to the prisoners. 
But as the flames caught the great wooden porch of the 
Prefecture, the screams of the women were heart-rending ; 
They even disturbed Ferre, who sent orders "■ to stop their 
squalling." One warder, Braquond, ventured to remon- 
strate. '- Bah ! " said Ferre, " they are only women be- 
longing to gendarmes and sei-gerits de ville ; we shall be well 
rid of them." Then Braquond resolved to organize a 
revolt, and save the prisoners. He ran to the corridor, and 
with a voice of authority ordered all the cell-doors to be 
opened, thus releasing four hundred prisoners. Braquond 
put himself at their head and led them on. But when they 
reached the outer gate, they were just in time to witness the 
departure of the last Vengeur de Floui^ens. Ferre had just 
received news that the troops of Versailles were close at 
hand, and he and his subordinates fled, leaving the prisoners 
to shift for themselves. 

But though delivered from the Commune, not only was 

^ Le Fisraro. 



344 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

the Prefecture and all in it in peril, but every building and 
every life upon the island. Quantities of ammunition had 
been stored in the Prefecture ; if that caught fire, the 
"Cite" (as that part of Paris is called) and all its inhabitants 
would be blown into the air. The citizens of the quarter, 
the turnkeys, and the prisoners had nothing but their hands 
with which to fight the flames. In the midst of the fire 
they began to carry out the gunpowder. They had to 
make all speed, yet to be very careful. One train of 
powder escaping from a barrel, one sack of cartridges, with 
a rent in it, falling on the pavement, where sparks were 
dropping about, might have destroyed the whole " Cite." 

There was a brave, stout woman, mistress of a coal and 
wood yard, named Madame Saint-Chely. She was a native 
of Auvergne, whence all porters and water-carriers in Paris 
come. With her sleeves tucked up, and her hair flying, 
she kept carrying out sack after sack of cartridges, un- 
daunted, though her clothes caught fire. Bending beneath 
the weight upon her back, she emptied them into the 
basin of the fountain that stands in the middle of the Place, 
then rushed back for more, while the flames poured from 
the windows of the upper story. Her activity and cheerful- 
ness animated every one. 

There was also a barber named Labois, who distinguished 
himself by his courage and activity in rolling barrels of 
powder out of the cellar of the prefecture, and plunging 
them into the Seine. 

When several tons of powder and twenty millions of cart- 
ridges had been carried out, danger from that source was 
over. The next thing was to fight the flames. Then they 
discovered that all the fire-engines had been sent away. 
Every basin, pitcher, bucket, or saucepan on the island was 
put into requisition. Surrounded by the Seine, they had 
plenty of water. All worked with a will. At last an engine 
came, sent in to their help from Rambouillet. 

One part of the Prefecture, whose burning caused innu- 
merable sparks, was the depot for lost property. It con- 
tained, among other things twenty thousand umbrellas. 



THE HOSTAGES. 345 

It was above all things desirable to remove the straw 
bedding of the prisoners, stored by day in one large room ; 
and while those busy with powder and cartridges worked 
below, Pierre Braquond, the turnkey, took this task upon 
himself, assisted by some of his late prisoners. 

The difficulty of escaping from the island was great, 
for the insurgents would fire on fugitives from the right 
bank of the river, the Versailles troops from the left. A 
warder, at the risk of his life, crept to the water's edge 
opposite to the Versaillais, and waved a white handkerchief. 
As soon as he was seen, the troops ceased firing. Every 
moment it was expected that the roof of the prison would 
fall in, when suddenly the reservoir on the top of the build- 
ing gave way, and the flames were checked by a rush of water. 
Braquond had said to Judge Bonjean a few days before he 
was sent from the Prefecture to Mazas, ^' I can stay here 
no longer. I am going to escape to Versailles." M. Bon- 
jean replied : '• As a magistrate I command you to remain ; 
as a prisoner I implore you. What would become of those 
under your care if the friends of the Commune were set 
over them? " 

The Ministry of Marine (that is, the Navy Department) is 
situated in the Rue Saint-Florentin, near the Rue Royale 
and the Place de la Concorde, — the most beautiful part 
of the city. The officer who held it for the Commune was 
Colonel Brunei, an excellent middle-aged man, far too good 
for his associations. There was no stain of any kind on 
his past life, but he had been disappointed when peace 
was made with the Germans, and had joined the Commune 
in a moment of patriotic enthusiasm. Once in its service, 
there was no way to escape. 

On May 23 the Versaillais were gaining every moment. 
There was a man named Matillion, charged by the Central 
Committee to do anything or to burn anything to prevent 
their advance. That night, when houses that he had set on 
fire were blazing in the Rue Royale (he had had petroleum 
pumped upon them by fire-engines), there was a fierce 
orgy held by the light of the flames before the Church of 



346 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

the Madeleine. A wild, demon-like dance was led by 
three women who had done duty all day as petroleuses, — 
Florence, Aurore, and Marie. Marie had been pubHcly 
thanked at the Hotel-de-Ville for sending a cannon- 
ball through one of the statues before the Chamber of 
Deputies. 

Three battalions of Communist soldiers stationed in the 
Ministry of Marine, which had been converted into a hos- 
pital, took advantage of the fact that the general attention 
was fixed upon this orgy to quit their post and steal away, 
leaving the Ministry undefended. It was eleven at night ; 
Colonel Brunei was sending to the Central Committee for 
fresh soldiers and fresh orders, when a paper was given him. 
He read it, turned pale, and sent for the doctor. " The 
Central Committee," he said, " orders me to blow up this 
building immediately." " But my wounded ? " cried the doc- 
tor. There were one hundred and seven wounded soldiers of 
the Commune in the hospital. There was no place to which 
they could be moved, and no means of transportation. 
Colonel Brunei sent an orderly to represent the case to the 
Committee. All he could obtain was a detail of National 
Guards to assist in carrying away the wounded, together 
with a positive order to burn down the building. As the 
sick men were being very slowly carried out, a party arrived, 
commanded by a drunken officer, and carrying buckets of 
coal-oil and other combustibles, which they scattered about 
the rooms. By this time the fires of the Versaillais gleamed 
through the trees in the Champs Elys^es. The Rue Royale, 
near at hand, was in flames. Across the Seine, the Rue de 
Lille was burning. The Ministry of Finance and the palace 
of the Tuileries seemed a sea of flame. In the Ministry of 
Marine were two clerks, long attached to that branch of the 
Government service, who had been requested by Admiral 
Pothereau, the Minister for Naval Affairs, to remain at their 
post and endeavor to protect the papers and property. 
Their names were Gablin and Le Sage. M. Le Sage had 
his wife with him in the building. These men resolved 
to save the Ministry, or perish. While Le Sage, who was 



THE HOSTAGES. 347 

expert in gymnastics, set out to see if he could reach the 
general in command of the Versaillais, Gabhn turned all his 
energies to prevent the impending conflagration. Putting 
on an air of haste and terror, he rushed into the room 
where the soldiers were refreshing themselves, and cried out 
lustily that the Versaillais were upon them, but that if they 
followed him, he would save them. Under pretence of 
showing them a secret passage, he led them into a chamber 
and locked the door. Then he turned his attention to 
their commander. He represented to him that the Ver- 
saillais were close at hand, and promised him safety and a 
handsome reward if he would not set fire to the building. 
" But I have my orders ! " objected the half-tipsy officer. 
" I have the order you had better obey," replied Gablin, 
pointing a pistol at his head. " Now, shall I fire, or shall 
I reward you?" The officer gave in. He helped M. 
Gablin to pour the buckets of coal-oil into the gutters in the 
courtyard, to clear away the powder, and to drench the 
floors with water. Then Gablin took him to a chamber, 
gave him plain clothes, and locked him in. He fell asleep 
upon the bed in a moment. 

Le Sage meanwhile had made his way over the roofs o 
neighboring houses, and then descended to the Champs 
Elysees. He was arrested several times by sentries, but at 
last made his way to General Douai. The general heard 
his story, and then put a paper into his hand, saying, " The 
Ministry of Marine is already ours." Admiral Pothereau 
himself, at three o'clock in the morning, was looking towards 
his old offices and residence from the Champs Elysees. He 
remarked to an aide-de-camp and to another officer : " All 
looks very quiet. Suppose we go and reconnoitre, and 
see how near we can approach my official home." They 
held their swords in their hands, and, followed by three 
gendarmes, cautiously drew near the Ministry. They met 
with no opposition, and finally walked in. " Where 's Le 
Sage ? " was the admiral's first question. '^ He is out looking 
for you, M. le Ministre," cried Le Sage's wife, shedding 
tears of anxiety. 



348 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Thus the Mmistry of Marine was captured by the min- 
ister ; but the building itself and all its valuable documents 
had been preserved by the fidehty of two young men. 

As for the Communist officer, when he came to himself 
he sincerely repented his connection with the Commune. 
He was pardoned, became a respectable citizen, and found 
a true friend in M. Gablin. 



CHAPTER XVII. 



THE GREAT REVENGE. 



THE Commune cost Paris fourteen thousand lives. Eight 
thousand persons were executed ; six thousand were 
killed in open fight. Before the siege Paris had contained 
two million and a quarter of inhabitants : she had not half 
that number during the Commune, notwithstanding the 
multitude of small proprietors and peasants who had flocked 
thither from devastated homes. 

Monday, May 29, found the city in the hands of the Ver- 
saillais. The Provisional Government and its Parliament 
were victorious. The army, defeated at Sedan, had con- 
quered its insurgent countrymen. All that remained of the 
Commune was wreck and devastation. The Tuileries, the 
Column of the Place Vendome, the Treasury, the Palace of 
the Legion of Honor, and the H6tel-de-Ville, or City 
Hall, were destroyed, besides two theatres, the Law Courts, 
or Palais de Justice, the offices of the Council of State 
and the Court of Accounts, the State Safe Deposit (Caisse 
des Depots et de Consignations), the Library of the Louvre, 
the manufactory of Gobelin's tapestry, the Prefecture of 
Police, eight whole streets, and innumerable scattered 
private houses. The vengeance of the soldiers as they 
made their way from street to street, from barricade to bar- 
ricade, was savage and indiscriminate. Every man arrested 
whose hands were black with powder was carried to a street 
corner or a courtyard, and summarily shot. Of course many 
wholly innocent persons perished, for the troops of the 
Commune had been of two kinds, — the National Guard 
and the Volunteers. Most of the latter were devils incarnate. 



350 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Among them were the Vengeicrs de Flourens, who were 
foremost in executions, and bands called by such names as 
Les Enfants du Ph'e Duchene and Les Enfants Perdics. 
The National Guards were of three classes, — genuine Com- 
munists, workmen whose pay was their only resource for 
the support of their famihes, and pressed men, forced to 
fight, of whom there were a great many. 

I have before me three narratives written by gentlemen 
who either suffered or participated in the Great Revenge. 
One was a resident in Paris who had taken no part either 
for or against the Commune ; one had served it on compul- 
sion as a soldier ; and one was an officer of the Versailles 
army, who on May 21 led his troops through a breach into 
the city, and fought on till May 27, when all was over. 

It seems to me that such accounts of personal experience 
in troubled times give a far more vivid picture of events 
than a mere formal narration. I therefore quote them in 
this chapter in preference to telling the story in my own 
words. 

The first is by Count Joseph Orsi,i whose visit to Raoul 
Rigault's office at the Prefecture of Police has already 
been told. He was left unmolested by the Commune, most 
probably because in early life he had been a member of 
those secret societies in Italy to which Louis Napoleon 
himself belonged. He says, — 

" On May 22 Paris was entering the last stage of its death 
struggle. The army of Versailles had entered it from four dif- 
ferent points. The fight was desperate. Barricades were 
erected in almost every street. Prisoners on both sides were 
shot in scores at the street-corners. Three of the largest houses 
in the Rue Royale, where I lived, were on fire. Soldiers of the 
regular army were beginning to appear in our quarter, and early 
on Thursday, May 25, I heard the bell of my apartment ring 
violently. I opened it, and found myself face to face with twelve 
voltigeurs of the Versailles army, commanded by a lieutenant, 
who ordered the soldiers to search the house and shoot anyone 
wearing a uniform. He told me that he must occupy my draw- 
ing-room, which looked on the Rue Royale, for the purpose of 

1 Published in Eraser's Magazine, 1879. 



THE GREAT REVENGE. 



351 



firing on the insurgents, who were holding a barricade where 
the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honore joins the Rue Royale. My 
wife was seated on her sofa. He ordered her to leave the room. 
She resisted, and was removed by force. The soldiers then 
began firing on the insurgents from the windows. The insur- 
gents had possession of the upper floors of some houses facing 
mine, and fired with such effect that the soldiers were driven 
from their position. The officer withdrew his men from the 
drawing-room and asked for a map of Paris, for he did not know 
exactly where he v/as. I made a friend of him by pointing to 
my pictures, every one of which proved me to be a friend and 
follower of the emperor. He asked me if I had any wine to 
give his men, who had had nothing to eat or drink since the 
previous night. While they were partaking of bread and wine 
in the kitchen, and I was talking with the officer in the dining- 
room, a shot fired from across the street struck the officer on 
the temple. He fell as if struck dead. His soldiers rushed in 
and seized me. They were about to shoot me on the spot, when 
luckily my servant, with water and vinegar, brought the officer 
to his senses, so that he could raise his hand and make a sign 
to the soldiers, who had me fast by both my arms, to keep quiet. 
By God's mercy the officer had only been stunned. He had 
been hit, not by a bullet, but by a piece of brick forced out of 
the wall by a shot. I was released, but the soldiers were far 
from satisfied, believing their officer had accepted this explana- 
tion only to spare my life. They left my house at nightfall, and 
afterwards the fire of the insurgents became so hot that the 
front wall of the house fell in, and everything I had was smashed 
to pieces. 

" The next morning, May 26, as I was searching for some 
valuable papers among the ruins, two men in plain clothes en- 
tered and ordered me to follow them to the Prefecture of Police, 
temporarily located on the Quai d'Orsay. As Paris was by this- 
time completely under military rule I was examined by an officer. 
I told him that, not knowing for what purpose I was wanted, I 
had left my papers at home, and was sent under charge of two 
men to fetch them. I was also given to understand that I had 
better make any arrangements I thought necessary for my wife, 
which led me to think it probable I should be shot or impris- 
oned. It was a reign of terror of a new kind, of which I could 
never have expected to be a victim. As we were crossing the 
Place de la Concorde we saw half a dozen soldiers who had 
seized four Federals on the barricade close by. A struggle was 
going on for life or death. The soldiers, having at last the 



352 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

upper hand, strove to drag the Federals to the wall of the Min- 
istry of Marine to be shot. The poor wretches were imploring 
for mercy, and refused to stand erect. Seeing this, the soldiers 
shot them one after the other as they lay upon the ground. 

" I was finally disposed of, in company with other prisoners, 
in some large stables and carriage houses. Some of us were in 
plain clothes, some in uniform. We were all packed together 
so closely that there was not even the possibility of lying down 
upon the stones. Bread and water alone were given us. On the 
approach of night we were shut in like cattle, with the intima- 
tion that any attempt to revolt or escape would be followed by 
instant execution. 

" The next morning, May 27, at dawn, ten soldiers, with an 
officer at their head, began calling by name eight or ten prison- 
ers at a time from one of our places of confinement, and they 
were dragged away, God knows where. Utter dejection and 
despair were depicted on the face of every man, especially on 
those who had been seized on the barricades or in uniform. 
That afternoon I was called out, being part of a batch of nine 
prisoners, mostly in plain clothes. On that day rain fell inces- 
santly. We thought as we marched through the mud and drizzle 
that we were going to be shot en iiiasse without any further 
trial ; but on reaching the Champ de Mars, our escort was or- 
dered to take us to the barracks that are near it. There our 
names were taken down by an officer, and we were locked up in 
a room where seven other prisoners had already been confined. 
It would be too horrible to relate the filth and closeness of that 
place, which might have held seven or eight people, and we 
were sixteen ! There was a board fitted between two walls 
where seven people could lie. This was appropriated before we 
got there. We were forced to stand up or to lie down on the 
stones, which were damp and inexpressibly dirty. We remained 
thus for two days. On the 29th the door opened at seven a. m. 
Eight soldiers were drawn up outside. The sergeant called out 
one of the prisoners named Lefevre, who wore a National 
Guard's uniform. The poor fellow stepped out between the two 
lines of soldiers, and the door closed on him. He was taken 
before the colonel, who was instructed to examine the prisoners, 
and had the discretionary power of ordering them to be shot on 
the spot, or of sending them to Versailles to appear before the 
superior commission, by whom they were either set at liberty or 
sentenced to transportation. Poor Lefevre was not heard of 
again. We thought we heard a brisk volley of musketry in the 
large courtyard, but we had been so accustomed to such noises 



THE GKEA T RE VENGE. 



353 



that it did not attract general attention. Later in the day an- 
other prisoner was called out in the same manner, and he came 
back no more ; this time the noise of the discharge was distinct, 
and made us ahve to the imminence of our fate. On the third 
prisoner being called out, he refused to go. Two soldiers had 
to take him by force. He fought desperately for his life. The 
door was shut. We had not long to wait; the discharge of 
musketry re-echoed in our cell, and caused within it such a scene 
of despair as baffles description. 

" Next day four men were taken out and executed, which re- 
duced our number to nine. By this time we had recovered from 
the shots and heeded little what was going to take place, as 
every one of us had bidden adieu to this world and made his 
peace with God. 

"On May 31 our door was opened again. Twelve soldiers 
were drawn up before it. We were all ordered out. We thought 
we were going to be shot en masse^ to make quicker work of us. 
To my amazement, we saw a large column of about four hun- 
dred prisoners, four abreast, between two lines of grenadiers. 
Evidently we were intended to form the last contingent to it. 
The soldiers having been drawn up in two long lines on both 
sides of the column, an officer drew his sword, and standing up 
on a wine-hogshead, shouted : ' Soldiers, load arms.' This being 
done, he added : ' Fire on any prisoner who attempts to revolt 
or escape.' 

" We then took the road to the Western Railroad, where we 
were put into cattle vans and goods vans, with scarcely room to 
breathe, and reached Versailles about six p. m. A detachment 
of soldiers escorted us to Satory. The column marched in to 
the artillery depot, and the gates were closed. I happened to 
be the right-hand man of the four last prisoners in the column, 
so that I stood only three or four yards from the officer in com- 
mand of the place, who stood looking at the prisoners, with his 
arms folded and his officers beside him. I saw him staring at 
me, which I attributed to my being the best-dressed man of the 
party. Presently he walked slowly up to me, and measuring 
me from head to foot with what I took to be a diabolical sneer, 
cried, ' Ho ! Ho ! the ribbon of the Legion of Honor ! You 
got it, I suppose, on the barricades ! ' With that I felt a sharp 
pull at my coat. Quick as thought, I brought my hand down, 
and caught his firmly as he was trying to tear the ribbon from 
my breast. In my agitated state of mind I had not been aware 
I was wearing a coat that had it on. ' You may shoot me, Cap- 
tain,' I said, 'but you shall not wrest that ribbon from me.' 

23 



354 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

'Where did you get it ?' ' The prince president of the Republic, 
Louis Napoleon, gave it me.' 'When?' 'On September 23, 
1853.' ' How is it, then, that you were arrested ? Was it 6n a 
barricade?' ' No, Captain, in my own apartment. It is not 
likely I should fight for the Commune after having been a de- 
voted friend of the emperor for forty years.' ' Your name ? ' 
' Count Joseph Orsi.' He looked at me again, and having joined 
his officers, to whom he related what had taken place, he turned 
round and in a loud voice said to me : ' Come out of the ranks.' 
Then, seeing a gendarme close by, he said: 'Do not lose sight 
of this prisoner.' " 

For two days the captain kept Count Orsi in his office 
and encouraged him to write to any friends he might have 
in Versailles. Count Orsi named M. Grevy (afterwards 
president) as having been for years his legal adviser, and 
he wrote a few lines to various other persons. But there 
were no posts, and in the confusion of Versailles at that 
moment there seemed little chance that his notes would 
reach their destination. Two days later an order came to 
Satory to send all prisoners to Versailles, and the kind- 
hearted captain was forced to return Count Orsi to the 
column of his fellow-prisoners. 

At Versailles they were shut up in the wine-cellars of the 
palace, forty-five feet underground. The prisoners confined 
there were the very dregs and scum of the insurrection. 
The cellars had only some old straw on the floors, left there 
by the Prussians. There were six hundred men confined 
in this place, and the torture they endured from the close 
air, the filth, and the impossibility of lying down at night 
was terrible. 

Count Orsi was ten days in this horrible prison. At last 
one evening he heard his name called. His release had 
come. On going to the door he was taken before a supe- 
rior officer, who expressed surprise and regret at the mistake 
that had been committed, and at once set him at liberty. 
A brave little boy, charged with one of his notes, had per- 
severed through all kinds of difficulties in putting it into the 
hands of the English lady to whom it was addressed. This 
lady and the Italian ambassador had effected Count Orsi's 



THE GREAT REVENGE, 355 

release. He was ill with low fever for some weeks in con- 
sequence of the bad air he had breathed during his confine- 
ment. Subsequently he discovered that personal spite had 
'caused his arrest as a friend of the Commune. 

My next account of those days is drawn from the ex- 
perience of the Marquis de Compiegne/ one of the Versailles 
officers. He was travelling in Florida when the Franco- 
Prussian war broke out, but hastened home at once to join 
the army. He fought at Sedan and was taken prisoner to 
Germany, but returned in time to act against the Com- 
mune. Afterwards he became an explorer in the Soudan, 
and in 1877 was killed in a duel. 

On the 2 0th of May, news having reached Versailles that 
the first detachment of regular troops had made their way 
into Paris, M. de Compiegne hastened to join his battalion, 
which he had that morning quitted on a few hours' leave. 
As they approached the Bois de Boulogne at midnight, the 
sky over Paris seemed red with flame. They halted for 
some hours, the men sleeping, the officers amusing them- 
selves by guessing conundrums ; but as day dawned, they 
entered Paris through a breach in the defences. The young 
officer says, — 

"I shall never forget the sight. The fortifications had been 
riddled with balls ; the casemates were broken in. All over the 
ground were strewn haversacks, packets of cartridges, fragments 
of muskets, scraps of uniforms, tin cans that had held preserved 
meats, ammunition-wagons that had been blown up, mangled 
horses, men dying and dead, artillerymen cut down at their 
guns, broken gun-carriages, disabled siege-guns, with their wheels 
splashed red from pools of blood, but still pointed at our posi- 
tions, while around were the still smoking walls of ruined private 
houses. A company of infantry was guarding about six hun- 
dred prisoners, who with folded arms and lowering faces were 
standing among the ruins. They were of all ages, grades, and 
uniforms, — boys of fifteen and old men, general officers covered 
with gold lace, and beggars in rags : Avengers of Flourens, 

1 His narrative was published in the " Supplement Litteraire du 
Fisfaro." 



356 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Children of Pere Duchene, Chasseurs and Zouaves, Lascars, 
Turcos, and Hussars. We halted a little farther in the city. We 
were very hungry, but all the shops were closed. I got some 
milk, but some of my comrades, who wanted wine, made a raid 
into the cellar of an abandoned house, and were jumped upon 
by an immense negro dressed like a Turco, whom they took for 
the devil. Glad as we all were to be in Paris, the sight as we 
marched on was most melancholy. Fighting seemed going on 
in all directions, especially near the Tuileries and the Place de 
la Concorde. The Arch of Triumph was not seriously injured. 
On the top of it were two mortars, and the tricolored flag had 
been replaced by the drapeau rouge. Detachments were all 
the time passing us with prisoners. They were thrust for safe- 
keeping wherever space could be found. I am sorry to say 
that they were cruelly insulted, and, as usual, those who had 
fought least had the foulest tongues. There was one party of 
deserters still in uniform, with their coats turned inside out. I 
saw one of the prettiest girls I have ever seen, among the 
prisoners. She was about fourteen, dressed as a cantiitiere., 
with a red scarf round her waist. A smile was on her lips, and 
she carried herself proudly. 

" That morning. May 22, I saw nobody shot. I think they 
wanted to take all the prisoners they could to Versailles as 
trophies of victory. About one o'clock we received orders to 
march, and went down the Boulevard Malesherbes. All the 
inhabitants seemed to be at their windows, and in many places 
we were loudly welcomed. It was strange to me to be marching 
with arms in my hands, powder-stained and dirty, along streets 
I had so often trodden gay, careless, and in search of pleasure. 

" On the march we passed the Carmelite Convent, where my 
sister was at school; and as we halted, I was able to run in a, 
moment and see her. Only an hour or two before, the nuns 
had had a Communist picket in their yard. ^ 

" We marched on to the Pare Monceau [once Louis Philippe's 
private pleasure-garden]. There our men were shooting pris- 
oners who had been taken with arms in their hands. I saw 
fifteen men fall, — and then a woman. 

"That night volunteers were called for to defend an outlying 
barricade which had been taken from the insurgents, and of 
which they were endeavoring to regain possession. Our cap- 
tain led a party to this place, and in a tall house that overlooked 
the barricade he stationed three of us. There, lying flat on our 
faces on a billiard-table, we exchanged many shots with the 
enemy. A number of National Guards came up and surren- 



THE GREAT REVENGE. 357 

dered to us as prisoners. As soon as one presented himself 
with the butt of his musket in the air, we made him come under 
the window, where two of us stood ready to fire in case of 
treachery, while the third took him to the lieutenant. In the 
course of the night I was slightly wounded in the ear. A sur- 
geon pinned it up with two black pins. 

"It was now May 23, — an ever-memorable day. We were 
pushing on into Paris, and were to attack Montmartre ; but first 
we had to make sure of the houses in our rear. Then began 
that terrible fighting in the streets, when every man fights hand 
to hand, when one must jump, revolver in hand, into dark cellars, 
or rush up narrow staircases with an enemy who knows the 
ground, lying in wait. Two or three shots, well aimed, come 
from one house, and each brings down a comrade. Exasperated, 
we break in the door and rush through the chambers. The 
crime must be punished, the murderers are still on the spot; 
but there are ten men in the house. Each swears that he is 
innocent. Then each soldier has to take upon himself the 
office of a judge. He looks to see if the gun of each man has 
been discharged recently, if the blouse and the citizen's trousers 
have not been hastily drawn over a uniform. Death and life 
are in his hands ; no one will ever call him to account for his 
decision. Women and children fall at his feet imploring pity ; 
through all the house resound sobs, groans, and the reports of 
rifles. At the corner of every street lie the bodies of men shot, 
or stand prisoners about to be executed. 

" I was thankful when the moment came to attack the heights 
of Montmartre, and to engage in open warfare. General Pradie, 
our brigadier-general, marched at our head, greatly exposed, 
because of the gold lace on his uniform. An insurgent, whom 
we had taken prisoner, suddenly sprang from his guards, seized 
the general's horse, and presented at him a revolver that he had 
hidden in his belt. The general, furious, cried, ' Shoot him ! 
shoot him !' But we dared not, they were too close together. 
Suddenly the man sprang back, gained the street, and though 
twenty of us fired in haste at once, every ball missed him. 
Leaping like a goat, he made his escape. The general was 
very angry. Step by step we made our way, slowly, it is true, 
but never losing ground. About two hundred yards from Mont- 
martre were tall houses and wood-yards where many insurgents 
had taken refuge. These sent among us a shower of balls. We 
had sharp fighting in this place, but succeeded in gaining the 
position. Then we halted for about two hours, to make prepa- 
rations for an attack upon the heights. Some of us while we 



358 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

halted, fired at the enemy, some raided houses and made pris- 
oners; some went in search of something to eat, but seldom 
found it. I was fortunate, however, while taking some prisoners 
to the provost-marshal, to be able to buy a dozen salt herrings, 
four pints of milk, nine loaves of bread, some prunes, some 
barley-sugar, and a pound of bacon. I took all I could get, and 
from the colonel downward, all my comrades were glad to get a 
share of my provisions. The heights of Montmartre had been 
riddled by the fire from Mont Valerien. Sometimes a shell from 
our mortars would burst in the enemy's trenches, when a swarm, 
of human beings would rush out of their holes and run like 
rabbits in a warren." 

The punishment of the unfortunate, as well as of the 
guilty, was very severe. Their imprisonment in the Great 
Orangery at Versailles, where thousands of orange-trees 
are stored during the winter, involved frightful suffering. 
A commission was appointed to try the prisoners, but its 
work was necessarily slow. It was more than a year 
before some of the captured leaders of the Commune met 
their fate. Those condemned were shot at the Buttes of 
Satory, — an immense amphitheatre holding twenty thousand 
people, w^here the emperor on one of his fetes, in the early 
days of his marriage, gave a great free hippodrome per- 
formance, to the intense gratification of his lieges. 

Some prisoners were transported to New Caledonia ; 
Cayenne had been given up as too unhealthy, and this 
lonely island in the far Pacific Ocean had been fixed upon 
as the Botany Bay for political offenders. Some of the 
leaders in the Council of the Commune were shot in the 
streets. Raoul Rigault was of this number. Some were 
executed at Satory ; some escaped to England, Switzerland, 
and America ; some were sent to New Caledonia, but were 
amnestied, and returned to France to be thorns in the side 
of every Government up to the present hour ; some are now 
legislators in the French Chamber, some editors and pro- 
prietors of newspapers. Among those shot in the heat of 
vengeance at Satory was Valin, who had vainly tried to save 
the hostages. Deleschuze, in despair at the cowardice of 
his associates, quietly sought a barricade when affairs grew 



THE GREAT REVENGE. 359 

desperate, and standing on it with his arms folded, was shot 
down. Cluseret, who had real talent as an artist, had an 
exhibition a few years since of his pictures in Paris, and 
writing to a friend concerning it, speaks thus of himself : ^ 

" You can tell me the worst. When a man has passed through 
a life full of vicissitudes as I have done, during seventeen years 
of which I have seen many campaigns, fighting sometimes 
three hundred and sixty-five days in a year, or marching and 
counter-marching, without tents or anything ; when one has 
been three times outlawed and under sentence of death ; when 
one has known much of imprisonment and exile; when one has 
suffered from ingratitude, calumny, and poverty, — one is pretty 
well seasoned, and can bear to hear the truth." 

One thousand and thirty-one women were among the 
prisoners at Versailles and Satory. Many of them were 
women of the worst character. Eight hundred and fifty 
were set at liberty ; four were sent to an insane asylum ; 
but doctors declared that nearly every woman who fought 
in the streets for the Commune was more or less insane. 

The most important of all captures was that of Rochefort. 
He had been a leading man in the Council of the Com- 
mune, but was so great a favorite with men of literature, 
besides having strong friends and an old schoolfellow in 
Thiers' cabinet, that he escaped with transportation to the 
Southern Seas. On May 20, when he saw that the end 
of the Commune was at hand, he procured from the Dele- 
gate for Foreign Affairs passports for himself and his secre- 
tary. It is thought that the delegate, enraged at Rochefort's 
purpose of deserting his colleagues, betrayed him to the 
Prussians who held the fort of Vincennes. The Prussians 
sent word to the frontier, and there the fugitives were 
arrested. Rochefort had no luggage, but in his pocket was 
a great deal of miscellaneous jewelry, a copy of " Monte 
Cristo," and some fine cigars. Escorted by Uhlans, he was 
brought to St. Germains, and delivered over to the Versailles 
Government. For a long time his fate hung in the balance, 
and it seemed improbable that even the exertions of 

1 Le Fio-aro. 



360 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

M. Thiers, the President, and Jules Favre, the Minister for 
Foreign Affairs, could save him. 

Having told of the last days of the Commune as seen by 
Count Orsi and the Marquis de Compiegne, there remains 
one more narrative, — the experiences of a man still more 
intimately connected with the events of that terrible period, 
though, like a soldier in battle, he seems to have been able 
to see only what was around him, and could take no gen- 
eral view of what went on in other parts of the field. 

The writer was an English gentleman who pubUshed his 
narrative immediately after he returned to England in 
September and October, 1871, in " Macmillan's Magazine." 
"The writer," says the editor, ''is a young gentleman of 
good family and position. His name, though suppressed for 
good reasons, is known to us, and we have satisfied our- 
selves of the trustworthiness of the narrative." He says : 

" I left England very hurriedly for France on March 29, 1871. 
I had neglected to procure a passport, and had no papers to 
prove my identity. I travelled from Havre to Paris without 
trouble, and on the train met two men whom I saw afterwards 
as members of the Council of the Commune. The first thing 
that struck me on my arrival in Paris was the extreme quietness 
of the streets. During the first week of my stay I was absorbed 
in my own business, and saw nothing ; but on Monday, April 10, 
my own part in the concerns of the Commune began. I was 
returning home from breakfast about one o'clock in the day, 
when I met a sergeant and four men in the street, who stopped 
me, and the sergeant said : ' Pardon, Citizen, but what is your 
battalion ? ' I answered that, being an Englishman, I did not 
belong to any battahon. 'And your passport. Citizen?' On 
my replying that I had none, he requested me to go with him 
to a neighboring mairie^ and I was accordingly escorted thither 
by the four men. On my arrival I was shown into a cell, com- 
fortable enough, though it might have been cleaner. Having no 
evidence of my nationality, I felt it was useless to apply to the 
Embassy; all the friends I had in Paris who could have identi- 
fied me as an Englishman had left the city some days before, 
and as I reflected, it appeared to me that if required to serve the 
Commune, no other course would be left to me. One thing, 
however, I resolved, — to keep myself as much in the back- 
ground as possible. In three or four hours I was conducted 



THE GREAT REVENGE. 36 1 

before the members of the Commune for that arrondissement. 
They received me civilly, asked my name, age, profession, etc., 
and then one of them, taking up a paper, proceeded to say that 
I must be placed in a battalion for active service, as I was 
under forty years of age. 'Gentlemen,' I replied, 'your politi- 
cal affairs are of no interest to me, and it is my misfortune to 
be placed in this unpleasant predicament. But I tell you plainly, 
you may shoot me if you will, but I absolutely refuse to leave 
Paris to fight the Versaillais, who are no enemies of mine in 
particular, and I therefore demand to be set at liberty.' Upon 
this they all laughed, and told me to leave the room. After a 
httle time I was recalled, and told I should be placed in a 
conipagnie sedentaiie. I again remonstrated, and demanded to 
be set at liberty, when they said I was drunk, and ordered me 
to be locked into my cell, whence I was transferred to my bat- 
talion the next morning. I found my captain a remarkably 
pleasant man, as indeed were all my comrades in my company, 
and I can never forget the kindness I met with from them. My 
only regret is my utter ignorance of their fate. I can scarcely 
hope they all escaped the miserable fate that overtook so many; 
but I should rejoice to know that some were spared. On enter- 
ing the captain's office and taking off my hat, I was told to put 
it on again, 'as we are all equal here. Citizen ; ' and after the 
captain had said a few words to me, I was regaled with bread, 
sardines, and wine, — the rations for the day. Tlie captain was 
a young man of six-and-twenty, with a particularly quiet, gentle- 
manly manner (he was, I believe, a carpet-weaver). He had been 
a soldier, and had served in Africa with distinction. 

" The account of my daily duties as a member of this com- 
pany from April 10 to May 23 may be here omitted. I became 
orderly to one of the members of the Commune, and being sup- 
plied with a good horse (for as an Englishman I was supposed 
to be able to ride), I spent much of my time in carrying mes- 
sages. On the morning of Tuesday, May 23, our colonel told 
us of the death of Dombrowski, who had been shot during the 
night, though particulars were not known. I was sorry to hear 
of his end, for he had been disposed to be kind to me, and I 
knew then that the cause of the Commune was utterly lost, as 
he was the only able man among them. The night before, we 
had seen such a fire as I never saw before, streaming up to the 
sky in two pillars of flame. I was told it was the Tuileries. 
The Versaillais were already within the walls of Paris, but this 
we in the centre of the city did not know. The news spread 
during the day, however, and there was a great panic in the 



362 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

evenino-. Everybody began to make preparations for flight, the 
soldiers being anxious to get home and change their uniforms 
for plain clothes. No one knew with any degree of certainty 
where the enemy really was, nor how far he had advanced ; only 
one thing was certain, that the game was played out, and that 
sauve qui pent must be the order of the day. Men, women, and 
children were rushing frantically about the streets, demanding 
news, and repeating it with a hundred variations. The whole 
scene was lit up by fires which blazed in all directions. At last 
the nioht o-ave place to dawn, and the scene was one to be 
remembered for a lifetime. The faces of the crowd wore dif- 
ferent expressions of horror, amazement, and abject terror. . . o 
Early in the morning of Wednesday 24th, I, with some others, 
was ordered to the barricade of La Roquette.^ My companions 
were very good fellows, with one exception, — a grumpy old 
wretch who had served in Africa, and could talk about nothing 
but the heat of Algeria and the chances for plunder he had let shp 
there. Finding nothing to do at the barricade, I tied my horse 
and fell asleep upon the pavement. I dreamed I was at a great 
dinner-party in my father's house, and could get nothing to eat, 
though dishes were handed to me in due course. Many times 
afterwards my sleeping thoughts took that direction. I really be- 
lieve that there were times when I and many others would wil- 
lingly have been shot, if we could have secured one good meal. 
When I awoke, about mid-day, in the Rue de la Roquette, I 
found my companions gone to the mairie of the Eleventh Arroii- 
dissement, and I followed them. Our uniform was not unhke that 
of the troops of the line in the French army, so we were taken 
by the crowd for deserters, and hailed with ' Ah, les bon gar- 
cons ! Ah, les bons patriotes ! ' and we shouted back in turn 
with all our might, ' Vive la Commune ! Vive la Republique ! ' 
Those words were in my mouth the whole of the next three 
days The people never saw a horseman without shrieking to 
him, ' How is all going on at present?' To which the answer 
was invariably, 'All goes well! Vive la Commune I Vive la 
Republique!' though the enemy might at that moment be 
within five hundred yards. Indeed, the infatuation and cre- 
dulity displayed by the French, not only during the insurrection, 
but the whole war, was absurd. Tell them on good authority 
that they had lost a battle or been driven back, they would 
answer that you were joking, and you might think yourself 

1 At that time the execution of the hostages was taking place 
within the prison. 



THE GREAT REVENGE. 363 

lucky to escape with a whole skin; but say nothing but 'All 
goes well! We have won!' and without stopping to inquire, 
they would at once cheer and shout as if for a decisive 
victory." 

The next duty of our Englishman was to act as mounted 
orderly to captains who were ordered to visit and report 
on the state of the barricades, also to command all citizens 
to go into their houses and close the doors and windows. 
There was little enthusiasm at the barricades, and every- 
where need of reinforcements. The army of the Commune 
was melting away. The most energetic officer they saw 
was a stalwart negro heutenant, — possibly the man who, as 
De Compiegne tells us, had scared some Versaillais in a 
cellar on the 2 2d of May. 

On the night of Thursday, May 25, the Column of July 
was a remarkable sight. It had been hung with wreaths 
of immortelles, and those caught fire from an explosive. 
Elsewhere, except for burning buildings, there was total 
darkness. There was no gas in Paris, of course. And 
here our Englishman goes on to say that so far as his ex- 
perience went, he saw no petroleuses nor fighting women, 
nor did he believe in their existence. 

By Friday, May 26, provisions and fodder were exhausted, 
and it was hard for the soldiers of the Commune to get 
anything to eat. Our Englishman, in the general disorgani- 
zation, became separated from his comrades, and joined 
himself to a small troop of horsemen wearing the red shirt 
of Garibaldi, who swept past him at a furious gallop. They 
were making for the cemetery of Pere la Chaise. " All is 
lost ! " they cried. ''To get there is our only chance of 
safety." Yet they still shouted to the men and women 
whom they passed, '' All goes well ! Vive la Commune ! 
Vive la Republique / " By help of an order to visit all the 
posts, which the Englishman had in his pocket, they ob- 
tained admittance into Pere la Chaise. There were five 
Poles in the party, one Englishman, and one Frenchman ; 
"and certainly," adds the narrator, "they were no credit 
to their respective nations. It was on their faces that I 



364 PRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

remarked for the first time that peculiar hunted-down look 
which was afterwards to be seen on every countenance, and 
I presume upon my own," 

Our Englishman rode up to a battery in Pere la Chaise, 
planted on the spot made famous by a celebrated passage 
in " Le Pere Goriot," in which Balzac describes Rastignac, 
on the eve of finally selling himself to Satan, as standing and 
gazing down on Paris, to conquer a high place in which is 
to be his reward. The observer who saw the city from the 
same spot on the 26th of May, 1871, says, — 

" Beneath me lay stretched out like a map the once great and 
beautiful city, now, alas ! given over a prey to fire and sword. I 
could see smoke rising from many a heap of ruins that but a 
few short hours before had been a palace or a monument of art. 
It was impossible, however, to decide what buildings were actu- 
ally burning, for a thick, misty rain had set in, which prevented 
my seeing distinctly. In my descent I passed the place where 
the body of Dombrowski was lying. He had been shot from 
behind, and the ball had passed through his body. At the gate 
of the cemetery I found a man waiting for me with news that 
Belleville was to be our rendezvous. Words cannot paint the 
spectacle that Belleville presented. It was the last place left, 
the only refuge remaining ; and such an assemblage as was col- 
lected there it would be difficult to find again. There were Na- 
tional Guards of every battalion. Chasseurs Federes in their 
wonderful uniform, — a sort of cross between Zouave, linesman, 
and rifleman, — Enfants Perdus in their green coats and feath- 
ers (very few of these were to be seen, as they had no claim to 
quarter, nor did they expect any), Chasseiirs a Cheval of the 
Commune, in their blue jackets and red trousers, leaning idly 
against the gates of their stables, Eclaireurs de la Co7nm7ine 
in blue, Garibaldians in red, hussars, cantinieres, sailors, civi- 
lians, women, and children, all mixed up together in the crowded 
streets, and looking the picture of anxiety. In the afternoon 
about four o'clock we were ordered to mount and to escort ' ces 
coquins,' — as the officer called a party of prisoners. They were 
forty-five gendarmes and six cures, who were to be shot in the 
courtyard of a neighboring building. We obeyed our orders 
and accompanied them to their destination. I was told off to 
keep back the crowd. The men about to die, fifty-one in all, 
were placed together, and the word was given to fire. Some 



THE GREAT REVENGE. 365 

few, happier than the rest, fell at once, others died but slowly. 
One gendarme made an effort to escape but was shot through 
the stomach, and fell, a hideous object, to the ground. One old 
cure^ with long hair white as snow, had the whole of one side of 
his head shot away, and still remained standing. After I had 
seen this, I could bear it no longer, but, reckless of consequences, 
moved away and left the ground, feeling very sick. As I was 
in the act of leaving, I observed a lad, a mere boy of fourteen 
or fifteen, draw a heavy horseman's pistol from his belt and fire 
in the direction of the dead and dying. He was immediately 
applauded by the mob, and embraced by those who stood near 
as 'a good patriot.' And here let me remark that those who 
have thought it cruel and inhuman on the part of the conquer- 
ors to arrest and detain as prisoners gamins of from twelve to 
sixteen, are quite mistaken. Those who remained at the barri- 
cades to the last, and were most obstinate in their defence, were 
the boys of Paris. They were fierce and uncontrollable, and 
appeared to be veritably possessed of devils. The difference 
between the irregular corps and the National Guard was that 
the latter had, with very few exceptions, been forced to serve, 
like myself, under compulsion, or by the stern necessity of pro- 
viding bread for their wives and children, while the Irregulars 
were all volunteers, and had few married men in their ranks." 



Later in the day two mounted officers in plain clothes, 
one of them a captain, whom our friend had served as or- 
derly, called him and an artilleryman out of the ranks, and 
ordered them to accompany them. After a devious course 
through obscure streets of Paris, the officers gave them 
some money, and ordered them to go into the next street 
and see if they could procure plain clothes. Having done 
so, they returned to the place where their officers had prom- 
ised to wait for them ; but they had disappeared. This was, 
in truth, a good-natured ruse to save the lives of the two 
privates, though at the time it was not so understood. Not 
knowing what to do, they attempted to return to their regi- 
ments, but at the first outpost they were challenged by the 
sentry. They had been away five hours, and the counter- 
sign had been changed. They were arrested, and carried 
to the nearest mairie. They were led upstairs and taken 
before a member of the Commune who was sitting at a 



# 




366 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

table covered with papers, busily writing, surrounded by men 
of all ranks and uniforms. On hearing their story, he turned 
round, and said, in excellent English, " What are you doing 
here, an Enghshman and in plain clothes? " The English- 
man had grown angry. He answered recklessly : " Yes, I 
am English, and I have been compelled to serve your 
Commune. I don't know what your name is, or who 
you are, but I request that you give me a paper to allow 
me to quit Paris without further molestation." The mem- 
ber of the Commune smiled, and answered : " There is 
only one thing to be done with you. Here, sergeant ! " And 
the Englishman and the artilleryman were escorted to the 
guard-room. There everything of value was taken from 
them. The Englishman lost his watch, his money, and 
what he valued more, his note-book and papers. He wore 
a gold ring, the gift of his mother ; and as it was difficult 
to get off, some of the soldiers proposed amputating the 
finger. 

Next, a species of court-martial was held, which in a 
few minutes passed sentence that they were to be shot at 
nine the next morning, for "refusing to serve the Com- 
mune ! " They had been asked no questions, no evi- 
dence had been heard, and no defence had been allowed 
them. Says the Englishman, — 

" We were conducted to the Black Hole. There we found 
nine others who were to suffer the same fate in the morning. I 
was too tired to do anything but throw myself on a filthy mat. 
tress, and in a few minutes I was sleeping what I thought was 
my last sleep on earth. I was roused at daybreak by a tre- 
mendous hammering of my companions on the door of our cell. 
I was irritated, and asked angrily why they could not allow 
those who wished to be quiet to remain so. They answered by 
telling me to climb up to the window and look into the court- 
yard. I found it strewn with corpses. The uiairie had been 
evacuated during the night, and it was evident we should not be 
executed. In vain we tried to force the door of our cell ; all we 
could do was to make as much noise as possible to attract at- 
tention. At last a sergeant of the National Guard procured the 
keys, the heavy door was opened, and we were free. I avoided 



THE GREAT REVENGE. 367 

a distribution of rifles and ammunition, and passed out into the 
street, hoping that my troubles were over. Alas ! they were 
only just begun; for the first sight that met my eyes as I 
stepped into the street was a soldier of the Government, calling 
on all those in sight to surrender and to lay down their arms. I 
gave myself up as a prisoner of war. It was Whit-Sunday, 
May 28. Happily my name was written down as one of those 
taken without arms. 

" I was placed in a party of prisoners, and we were marched 
to the Buttes de Chaumont, passing in our way many a barri- 
cade, or rather the remains of them. Here, the body of a man 
shot through the head was lying stiff and cold upon the pave- 
ment; there, was a pool of coagulated blood ; there, the corpse 
of a gentleman in plain clothes, apparently sleeping, with his 
head buried in his arms; but a small red stream issuing from 
his body told that he slept the sleep of death. Some, as we 
marched on, kept silence, some congratulated themselves that 
all was over, while some predicted our immediate execution. 
All had the same hunted-down, wearied look upon their faces 
that I have before alluded to. At last we were halted and given 
over to the charge of a regiment of the line. The first order 
given was, ' Fling down your hats ! ' Luckily I had a little silk 
cap, which I contrived to sHp into my pocket, and which was 
afterwards of great comfort to me. We stood bare-headed in 
the blazing sun some time, till our attention was called to a 
sound of shooting, and a whisper went round: 'We are all to 
be shot.' The agonized look on the faces of some, I can never 
forget ; but these were men of the better sort, and few in number : 
the greater part looked sullen and stolid, shrugged their shoul- 
ders, and said, ' It won't take long ; a shot, and all is over.' 

" A boy about four files behind me was a pitiable object ; his 
cries and his frantic endeavors to attract notice to a document of 
some sort he held in his hand, were silenced at last by a kick from 
an officer and a ' Tais toi, crapaud ! ' Very different was it with 
a poor child of nine, who stood next to me. He never cried 
nor uttered a word of complaint, but stood quietly by my side 
for some time, looking furtively into my face. At last he ven- 
tured to slip his little hand into mine, and from that time till 
the close of that terrible day we marched hand in hand. Mean- 
time the executions went on. I counted up to twenty, and 
afterwards I believe some six or seven more took place. Those 
put to death were nearly all officers of the National Guard. 
One who was standing near me, a paymaster, had his little 
bag containing the pay of his men, which he had received tlie 



368 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

day before, but had not been able to distribute among them. 
He now gave it away to those standing round him (I among 
them getting a few francs), saying, ' I shall be shot ; but this 
money may be of use to you, my children, in your sad captivity.' 
He was led out and shot a few minutes afterwards. They all, 
without exception, met their fate bravely and like men. There 
was no shrinking from death, or entreaties to be spared, among 
those I saw killed. 

" After an hour we resumed our march, the mob saluting us 
with the choicest selection of curses and abusive epithets I ever 
heard. We passed down the Rue Royale, the bystanders call- 
ing on us to look upon the ruin we had caused, through the 
Champs filysees to the Arch of Triumph, marching bare-headed, 
under a burning sun. At length, in the Avenue de ITmp^ratrice, 
an order to halt was given. There, weary and footsore, many 
dropped down on the ground, waiting for death, which we were 
now convinced was near at hand. For myself, I felt utterly 
numbed and contented to die, and I think I should have received 
with equal indifference the news of my release. I remember 
plotting in my mind how I could possibly get news of my fate 
conveyed to my parents in England. Could I ask one of the 
soldiers to convey a message for me? And would he under- 
stand what to do.^ With such thoughts, and mechanically 
repeating the Lord's Prayer to myself at intervals, 1 whiled 
away more than an hour, until an order, ' Get up, all of you,' 
broke the thread of my meditations. Presently General the 
Marquis de Gallifet (he who had served the emperor in Mexico) 
passed slowly down the line, attended by several officers. He 
stopped here and there, selecting several of our number, chiefly 
the old or the wounded, and ordered them to step out of the 
ranks. His commands were usually couched in abusive lan- 
guage. A young man near me called out, ' I am an American. 
Here is my passport. I am innocent.' ' Silence ! We have 
foreigners and riff-raff more than enough. We have got to get 
rid of them,' was the general's reply. All chance was over now, 
we thought ; we should be shot in a few minutes. Our idea 
was that those who had been placed aside were to be spared, 
and those about me said : ' It is just. They would not shoot 
the aged and the wounded ! ' Alas ! we were soon to be un- 
deceived. Again we started, and were ordered to march arm 
in arm to the Bois de Boulogne. There those picked out of 
our ranks by General de Gallifet — over eighty in number — 
were all shot before our eyes ; yet so great was our thirst that 
many, while the shooting was going on, were struggling for 



THE GREAT REVENGE. 369 

water, of which there was only a scant supply. I was not 
foitunate enough to get any. 

" The execution being over, we proceeded, now knowing that 
our destination was Versailles. Oh, the misery and wretched- 
ness of that weary march ! The sun poured fiercely down on 
our uncovered heads, our throats were parched with thirst, our 
blistered feet and tired legs could hardly support our aching 
bodies. Now and again a man utterly worn out would drop by 
the wayside. One of our guard would then dismount, and try 
by kicks and blows to make him resume his place in the line. 
In all cases those measures proved unavailing, and a shot in 
the rear told us that one of our number had ceased to exist. 
The executioner would then fall into his place, laughing and 
, chatting gayly with his comrades. 

" Towards eight o'clock in the evening we entered Versailles. 
If the curses we had endured in Paris were frightful and nu- 
merous, here they were multiplied tenfold. We toiled up the 
hill leading to Satory, through mud ankle deep. ' There stand 
the mitrailleuses^ ready for us,' said one of my companions. 
Then, indeed, for the first t'me I felt afraid, and wished I had 
been among those who had been executed in the daytime, rather 
than be horribly wounded and linger in my misery ; for no sure 
aim is taken by a niitrailleuse. 

" The order came to halt, and I waited for the whirring 
sound ; but, thank God ! I waited in vain. We set ourselves in 
motion once more, and soon were in an immense courtyard 
surrounded by walls, having on one side large sheds in which 
we were to pass the night. With what eagerness did we throw 
ourselves on our faces in the mud, and lap up the filthy water 
in the pools ! There was another Englishman, as well as several 
Americans, among our number, also some Dutch, Belgians, and 
Italians. The Englishman had arrived in Paris from Brest on 
May 14 to 'better himself,' and had been immediately arrested 
and put in prison by the Commune. Being released on the 21st 
of May, he was captured the next day by the Versaillais. I re- 
mained all the time with him till my release. 

"On Wednesday, May 31, we were despatched to Ver- 
sailles to be examined at the oraiigerie. The o?'angerie is 
about seven hundred feet long and forty broad, including 
two wings at either end. It is flagged with stone, on which 
the dust accumulates in great quantities. According to my ex- 
perience, it is bitterly cold at night, and very hot in the day- 
time. Within its walls, instead of fragrant orange-trees, were 
four to five thousand human beings, now herded together in 

24 



370 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

a condition too miserable to imagine, a prey to vermin, disease, 
and starvation. 

" The general appearance of the crowd of captives was, I must 
confess, far from prepossessing. They were very dirty, very 
dusty and worn out, as I myself was probably, and no wonder ; 
the floor was several inches thick in dust, no straw was attain- 
able, and washing was impossible. I gained some comparative 
comfort by gathering up dust in a handkerchief and making a 
cushion of it. Thursday, June i, dragged on as miserably as 
its predecessor, the only event being the visit of a deputy, which 
gave rise to great anticipations, as he said, in my hearing, that 
our condition was disgraceful, and that straw and a small portion 
of soup ought to be allowed us. 

" The terrible scenes and sufferings we had gone through had 
deprived many of our number of their reason. Some of the 
madmen were dangerous, and made attempts to take the lives 
of their companions ; others did nothing but shout and scream 
day and night. The second night we passed in the orangerie 
the Englishman and I thought we had secured a place where we 
might lie down and sleep in the side gallery; but at midnight 
we were attacked by one of the most dangerous of the madmen. 
It was useless to hope to find any other place to lie down in, 
and we had no more rest that night, for several maniacs per- 
sisted in following us wherever we went, and would allow us no 
repose. I counted that night forty-four men bereft of reason 
wandering about and attacking others, as they had done our- 
selves. 

" The next day we found ourselves at last in the ranks of those 
who were to leave the orangerie. Our names were inscribed at 
eleven o'clock, and we stood in rank till seven in the evening, 
afraid to lose our places if we stirred. What our destination 
might be, was to us unknown ; but there was not a man who was 
not glad to quit the place where we had suffered such misery." 

Their destination proved to be Brest, which they reached 
at midnight of the next day, after travelling in cattle-cars 
for about thirty hours. They were transferred at once to a 
hulk lying in the harbor, clean shirts and water to wash 
with were given them, which seemed positive luxuries. 
Their treatment was not bad ; they had hammocks to sleep 
in, and permission to smoke on deck every other day. But 
the sufferings they had gone through, and the terribly foul 
air of the orangerie, had so broken them down that most of 



THE GREAT REVENGE. 



371 



them were stricken by a kind of jail-fever. Many, without 
.warning, would drop down as if in a fit, and be carried to a 
hospital ship moored near them, to be seen no more. 

Our Englishman remained three weeks on board this 
hulk, and then escaped ; but by what means he did not, in 
October, 18 71, venture to say. 

He concludes his narrative with these words : — 

" When I think of those who were with me who still remain in 
the same condition, and apparently with no chance of release, 
my heart grows sick within me, and I can only be thankful to 
Almighty God for my miraculous and providential escape. In 
conclusion let me say, as one who hved and suffered among 
them, that so far from speaking hardly of the miserable crea- 
tures who have been led astray, one ought rather to pity them. 
The greater part of those who served the Commune (for all in 
Paris, with but few exceptions, did serve) were 'pressed men' 
like myself. But those who had wives and children to support 
and were without work — nay, even without means of obtain- 
ing a crust of bread (for the siege had exhausted all their little 
savings) — were forced by necessity to enroll themselves in the 
National Guard for the sake of their daily pay. 

"In the regular army of the Commune (if I may so style the 
National Guard) there were but few volunteers, and these were 
in general orderly and respectable men ; but the irregular regi- 
ments, such as the Enfaiits Perdus, Chasseurs Federes, Defen- 
seurs de la Colonne de Juillet^ etc., were nothing but troops of 
blackguards and ruffians, who made their uniforms an excuse 
for robbery and pillage. Such men deserved the vengeance 
which overtook the majority of them." 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

THE FORMATION OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC. 

THE fall of the Commune took place in the last week of 
May, 1 8 7 1 . We must go back to the surrender of Paris, 
in the last week of January of the same year, and take up the 
history of France from the election of the National Assem- 
bly called together at Bordeaux to conclude terms of peace 
with the Prussians, to the election of the first president of 
the Third Republic, during which time France was under 
the dictatorship of M. Thiers. 

Adolphe Thiers was born in Marseilles, April i6, 1797. 
He was a poor little baby, whose father, an ex-Jacobin, had 
fled from France to escape the counter-revolution. The 
doctor who superintended his entrance into the world re- 
corded that he was a healthy, active child, with remarkably 
short legs. These legs remained short all his life, but his 
body grew to be that of a tall, powerful man. His appear- 
ance was by no means aristocratic or dignified if seen from 
a distance, but his defects of person were redeemed by the 
wondrous sparkle in his eyes. The family of his mother, 
on the maternal side, was named Lhommaga, and was of' 
Greek origin. It came from the Levant, and its members 
spoke Greek among themselves. Madame Thiers' father , 
was named Arnic, and his descent was also Levantine. 
Mademoiselle Arnic made a love-match in espousing Thiers, 
a widower, who after the 9th Thermidor had taken refuge 
under her father's roof. A writer who obtained materials 
for a sketch of Thiers from the Thiers himself, says, — 

"She pitied him, she was dazzled by his brilliant parts, 
charmed by his plausible manners, and regardless of his pov- 
erty and his incumbrance of many children, she insisted on 




r RES ID EXT ADOJ.PII THIERS. 



marrying him. Her family was indignant, and cast her off ; 
nor did she long find comfort in her husband. She was a Royal- 
ist, and remained so to the end of her days; he was a Jacobin. 
Moreover, she soon found that his tastes led him to drink and 
dissipation." 

This man, the father of Thiers, was small of stature, mer- 
curial in temperament, of universal aptitudes, much wit, 
and a perennial buoyancy of disposition. His weakness, 
like his son's, was a passion for omniscience. Some one 
said of him : *' He talks encyclopedia, and if anybody asked 
him, would be at no loss to tell you what was passing in the 
moon." He had been educated for the Bar, and belonged 
to a family of the haute bourgeoisie of Provence ; but every- 
thing was changed by the revolutionary see-saw, and shortly 
before his son was born, he had been a stevedore in the 
docks of Marseilles. His father (the statesman's grand- 
father) had been a cloth merchant and a man of erudition. 
He wrote a History of Provence, and died at the age of 
ninety-five. The Thiers who preceded him lived to be 
ninety-seven, and was a noted gastronome, whose house at 
Marseilles in the early part of the eighteenth century was 
known far and wide for hospitality and good cheer. He was 
ruined by speculative ventures in the American colonies. 

Thiers' grandfather, the cloth merchant, was a Royalist, 
who brought down upon himself the wrath of the Jacobins 
by inciting the more moderate party in Marseilles to seize 
the commissioners sent to them by the Convention, and im- 
prison them in the Chateau d'lf His son (Thiers' father), 
being himself a Jacobin, helped to release the prisoners, and 
accepted an office under them in Marseilles. This was the 
reason why he had to conceal himself during the reaction 
that followed the fall of Robespierre. But all his life he 
bobbed like a cork to the surface of events, or with equal 
facility sank beneath them. He seems to have been 
" everything by turns, and nothing long." Among other 
employments he became an impressario, and went with an 
opera troupe to Italy. There for a time he kept a gaming 
table, and finally turned up at Joseph Bonaparte's court at 



374 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Naples. He became popular with King Joseph, and fol- 
lowed him to Madrid. He was a French Micawber, without 
the domestic affections of his Enghsh counterpart, but with 
far more brilliant chances. His wife was left to struggle at 
Marseilles with her own boy to support, and with a host of 
step-children. What she would have done but for the kind- 
ness of her mother, Madame Arnic, it is hard to tell. 

Meantime Adolphe was adopted and educated by Ma- 
dame Arnic. She had provided him from his birth with 
influential patrons in the persons of two well-to-do god- 
fathers. The boy was brought up in one of those beautiful 
bastides, or sea-and-country villas, which adorn the shores of 
Provence. There he ran wild with the little peasant boys, 
and subsequently in Marseilles with the gamins of the city. 

His cousin, the poet Andre Chenier, got him an appoint- 
ment to one of the lycees, or high-schools, established 
by Napoleon ; but his grandmother would not hear of his 
*' wearing Bonaparte's livery." The two god-fathers had to 
threaten to apply to the absent Micawber on the subject, 
if the boy's mother and grandmother stood in the way of 
his education. They yielded at last, and accepted the ap- 
pointment offered them. Adolphe passed with high marks 
into the institution, and it cost him no trouble to keep 
always at the head of his classes. But in play hours there 
was never a more troublesome boy. He so perplexed 
and annoyed his superiors that they were on the eve of ex- 
pelling him, when a new master came to the lycee from 
Paris, and all was changed. This master had ruined his 
prospects by writing a pamphlet against the Empire. A 
warm friendship sprang up between him and his brilliant 
pupil. The good man was an unbending republican. 
When Thiers became Prime Minister of France under Louis 
Philippe, he wrote to his old master and offered him an 
important post in the Bureau of Public Instruction ; but the 
old man refused it. He would not accept Louis Philippe 
as " the best of repubUcs," and ended his letter by saying : 
" The best thing I can wish you is that you may soon retire 
from office, and that for a long time." 



FORMATION OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC. 375 

The influence of this new teacher roused all Thiers' facul- 
ties and stimulated his industry. From that time forward 
he became the most industrious man of his age. The bulle- 
tins and the victories of Napoleon excited his imagination. 
He would take a bulletin for his theme, and write up an 
account of a battle, supplementing his iQ\N facts by his own 
vivid imagination. His idea was that France must be the 
strongest of European powers, or she would prove the 
weakest ; she could not hold a middle place in the federa- 
tion of European nations. 

When Thiers had finished his school course his grand- 
mother mortgaged her house to supply funds for his en- 
trance into the college at Aix. He could not enter the 
army on account of his size, and he aspired to the Bar. 
His family was very poor at that period. Thiers largely 
supported himself by painting miniatures, which it is said 
he did remarkably well. 

At Aix he found good Uterary society and congenial asso- 
ciations. His friendship with his fellow-historian, Mignet, 
began in their college days. At Aix, too, where he was 
given full liberty to enjoy the Marquis d' Alberta's gallery 
of art and wonderful collection of curiosities and bronzes, 
he acquired his life-long taste for such things. Aix was 
indeed a place full of collections, — of antiquities, of cameos, 
of marbles, etc. 

Thiers' first literary success was the winning a prize at 
Nimes for a monograph on Vauvenargues, a moralist of 
the eighteenth century, called by Voltaire the master-mind 
of his period. He won this prize under remarkable cir- 
cumstances. The commission to award it was composed 
largely of Royalists, who did not like to assign it to a com- 
petitor, who, if not a Republican, was at least a Bonapartist. 
Thiers had read passages from his essay to friends, and the 
commissioners were aware of its authorship. They there- 
fore postponed their decision. Meantime Thiers wrote 
another essay on the same subject. Mignet had it copied, 
and forwarded to Nimes from Paris, with a new motto. 
This essay won the first prize ; and Thiers' other essay won 



3/6 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

the second prize, greatly to his amusement and deUght, and 
to the annoyance and discomfiture of the Committee of 
Decision. 

With six hundred francs in his pocket (I120), he went 
up to Paris, making the journey on foot. Having arrived 
there, he made his way to his friend Mignet's garret, weary 
and footsore, carrying his bundle in his hand. Mignet was 
not at home ; but in the opposite chamber, which Thiers 
entered to make inquiries for his friend, was a gay circle 
of Bohemians, who were enjoying a revel. The traveller 
who broke in upon their mirth is thus described : — 

" He wore a coat that had been green, and was faded to yellow, 
tight buff trousers too short to cover his ankles, and dusty, and 
glossy from long use, a pair of clumsy blucher boots, and a 
hat worthy of a place in the cabinet of an antiquary. His face 
was tanned a deep brown, and a pair of brass-rimmed spectacles 
covered half his face." 

That was about 182 1. Thiers was then not a profound 
politician, nor was he very clear as to theories about repub- 
hcanism ; but he was an enthusiast for Napoleon, an enthu- 
siast for France. He employed his leisure in making notes 
in the public libraries on the events between 1788 and 1799, 
— the year of the i8th Brumaire. His future History of 
the Revolution, Consulate, and Empire began, unconsciously 
to himself, to grow under his hand. He had hoped to be 
called to the Bar in Paris ; but as his want of height had 
prevented his entering the army, so his want of money pre- 
vented his entrance to the ranks of the lawyers of the 
capital. The council which recommends such admissions 
required at that period that the person seeking admittance 
should show himself possessed of a well-furnished domicile 
and a sufficient income. Thiers' resources fell far short of 
this. For a while he supported himself in Paris as best he 
could, partly by painting fans ; he then returned to Aix, 
where he was admitted to the Bar. But he could not stay 
long away from Paris. He returned, and again struggled 
with poverty, painting and making applications for literary 



FORMA no /V OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC. 377 

and newspaper work in all directions. At last, about the 
time of Louis XVIII.'s death, Manuel, the semi-republican 
deputy from Marseilles, took him up. He was then en- 
gaged upon his History, and was private secretary to the 
Due de Liancourt, to whose notice he had been brought by 
Talleyrand in a letter which said : " Two young men have 
lately brought me strong recommendations. One is gentle- 
manly and appears to have the qualifications you desire in 
a secretary ; the other is uncouth to a degree, but I think 
I can discern in him sparks of the fire of genius." The 
duke's reply was brief: "Send me the second one." 

In 1826 Thiers began to attract public notice as a clever 
and somewhat turbulent opponent of the priest party under 
Charles X. He got his first journahstic employment from 
the editor of a leading paper in Paris, the " Constitutionnel." 
He had a letter of introduction to the editor, who, nowise 
impressed by his appearance, and wishing to get rid of him, 
poUtely said he had no work vacant on the paper except 
that of criticising the pictures in the Salon, which he pre- 
sumed M. Thiers could not undertake. On the contrary, 
Thiers felt sure he could do the work, which the editor, 
confident of his failure, allowed him to try. The result 
was a review that startled all Paris, and Thiers was at once 
engaged on the " Constitutionnel " as literary, dramatic, and 
artistic critic. He proved to have a perfect genius for 
journaHsm, and all his hfe he considered newspaper work 
his profession. Before long he aspired to take part in the 
management of his paper, and to that end saved and 
scraped together every cent in his power, assisted by a 
German bookseller named Schubert, the original of Schmuke, 
in Balzac's " Cousin Pons." The " Constitutionnel " grew 
more and more popular and more and more powerful ; but 
still Thiers' means were very small, and he was bent on 
saving all he could to establish a new newspaper, the " Na- 
tional." He was engaged to be married to a young lady 
at Aix, whose father thought he was neglecting her, and 
came up to Paris to see about it. Thiers pleaded for delay. 
He had not money enough, he said, to set up housekeeping. 



3/8 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

A second time the impatient father came to Paris on the 
same errand, and on receiving the same answer, assaulted 
Thiers pubHcly and challenged him. The duel took place. 
Thiers fired in the air, and his adversary's ball passed 
between his little legs. Nobody was hurt, but the match 
was broken off, and the young lady died of the disappoint- 
ment. Thiers kept every memorial he had of her sacredly 
to the day of his death, and in the time of his power sought 
out and provided for the members of her family. 

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about M. Thiers was 
the unusual care he took to prepare himself fully before 
writing or speaking. He had every subject clearly and 
fully in his own mind before he put pen to paper, and when 
he began to write, he did so with extraordinary rapidity ; 
nor would he write any account of anything, either in a news- 
paper or in his history, till he had visited localities, conversed 
with eye-witnesses, and picked up floating legends. 

By an accident he became acquainted before other Pari- 
sian journalists with the signing of the Ordinances by 
Charles X., July 26, 1830. He had also good reason to 
think that Louis Philippe, if offered the crown of France 
or the lieutenant-generalship of the kingdom, would 
accept it. While fighting was going on in Paris, he and 
Ary Scheffer, the artist, were the two persons deputed to 
go to Neuilly and sound the Duke of Orleans. As we 
have seen, Marie Amelie, the duke's wife, indignantly re- 
fused their overtures in the absence of her husband, while 
Madame Adelaide, his sister, encouraged them. 

Thiers, Laffitte, and Lafayette became the foremost men 
in Paris at this crisis, and at the end of some days Louis 
Philippe became king of the French. He wanted to make 
Thiers one of his ministers, but Thiers characteristically 
declined so high an olifice until he should have served an 
apprenticeship to ministerial work in an under secretary- 
ship, and knew the machinery and the working of all 
departments of government. 

Thus far I have not spoken of Thiers' ^' History of the 
Revolution." It appeared first in monthly parts. Up to 



FORMATION OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC. 379 

the publication of the first number, in 1823, no writer in 
France had dared to speak well of any actor in the Revo- 
lution. Thiers' History, as it became known, created a 
great sensation. Thiers himself was supposed by the gen- 
eral pubhc (both of his own country and of foreign nations) 
to be a wild revolutionist. At first the critics knew not 
how to speak of a book that admired the States-General 
and defended the Constitutional Convention ; but by the 
time the third volume was completed, in 1827, it was bought 
up eagerly. The work was published afterwards in ten 
volumes, and the " History of the Consulate and Empire," 
which appeared between 1845 and 1861, is in twenty 
volumes ; but it is only fair to say that the print is very 
large and the illustrations are very numerous, and that the 
portraits especially are beyond all praise. 

From 1 83 1 to 1836, Thiers was one of Louis Philippe's 
ministers, and from 1836 to 1840 he was Prime Minister, 
or President of the Council. 

As soon as Thiers rose to power his mercurial father 
made his appearance in Paris. Thiers was disposed to 
receive him very coldly. " What have you ever done for 
me that you have any claim on me?" he asked. "My 
son," replied the prodigal parent, " if I had been an ordi- 
nary father and had stayed by my family and brought up 
a houseful of children in obscurity, do you suppose you 
would have been where you are now?" At this Thiers 
laughed, and gave his father a post-mastership in a small 
town in the South of France called Carpentras. There 
the old gentleman lived, disreputable and extravagant to 
the last, surrounded by a large family of dogs. 

Thiers provided at the earUest possible moment for his 
mother and grandmother, buying for the latter a pretty little 
property which she had always coveted, near Aix, and 
taking his mother to preside over his own home. But 
Madame Thiers felt out of place in her son's hfe, and pre- 
ferred to return to the property given to Madame Arnic, 
where she spent the rest of her days with the old lady. 
Lamartine tells a pretty anecdote of Thiers' relations with 



380 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

his mother. The poet and the statesman had been dining 
together at a friend's house, in 1830, when Thiers was 
already a cabinet officer. On leaving together after dinner, 
they found in the ante-room an elderly woman plainly 
and roughly dressed. She was asking for M. Thiers, who, 
as soon as he saw her, ran to her, clasped her in his arms, 
kissed her, and then, leading her by both hands up to the 
poet, cried joyously : " Lamartine, this is my mother ! " 

In 1834 Thiers married a beautiful young girl fresh from 
hex pension, Mademoiselle Drosne, who was co-heiress with 
her mother and her father to a great fortune. Unhappily 
Thiers had fallen first in love with the mother; but he 
accepted the daughter instead. The early married life of 
Madame Thiers was saddened by her knowledge of this 
state of things. She was devoted to the interests of her 
husband, and watched over him as a mother might have 
watched over a child. She was an accomplished woman 
and most careful housekeeper, and had received an excel- 
lent education. She knew many languages, and turned 
all English or German documents required by her husband 
into French. She was also a charming hostess, but she lived 
under the shadow of a great sorrow. 

When Thiers was to be married, he paid his father twelve 
thousand francs (about ^2,500) for the legal parental con- 
sent which is necessary in a French marriage ; but he was 
by no means anxious to have his irrepressible parent at 
his wedding. For three weeks before the event he hired 
all the places in all the stage-coaches running through 
Carpentras to Lyons. 

In 1840 M. Thiers went out of office, in consequence 
of a dispute with England about the Eastern Question. 
The only charge that his enemies ever brought against him 
affecting his honor as a politician was that of employing 
the Jew Deutz to act the part of Judas towards the Du- 
chesse de Berri ; but for that he could plead that it solved 
a difficulty, and probably saved many lives. 

During the Second Empire he kept much in retirement. 
At first he had thought that Prince Louis Napoleon, seeing 



FORMATION OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC. 38 1 

in him the historian and panegyrist of the Great Emperor, 
would call him to his councils. But he was quite mistaken. 
He could not — nor would he — have served Louis Napo- 
leon's turn as did such men as Persigny, Saint-Arnaud, De 
Maupas, and De Morny. When the coup (fetat came, Thiers 
was imprisoned with the other deputies, the only favor 
allowed him being a bed, while the other deputies had no 
couch but the floor. 

In 1869 there was a general election in France, which 
was carefully manipulated by the Government, in order that, 
if possible, no deputy might be sent to the Chamber who 
would provoke discussion on the changes in the Constitu- 
tion submitted by the emperor. Thiers thought it time for 
him to re-enter pubhc hfe and to speak out to his country- 
men. At this time one of the gentlemen attached to the 
English embassy in Paris had a conversation with him. 
" For a man," he says, " of talents, learning, and experi- 
ence, I never met one who impressed me as having so great 
an idea of his own self-importance ; " but the visitor was 
at the same time impressed by his frankness and sincerity. 
Speaking of the Emperor Napoleon III., and foreseeing his 
downfall, he said : " What will succeed him, I know not. 
God grant it may not be the ruin of France ! . . . For a 
long time I kept quiet. It was no use breaking one's 
head against the wall ; but now we have revolution staring 
us in the face as an alternative with the Empire ; and do 
you think I should be doing well or rightly by my fellow- 
citizens, were I to keep in the background? If I am 
wanted, I shall not fail." As he spoke, the fire in his eyes 
sparkled right through the glass of his spectacles, and all 
the time he talked, he was walking rapidly up and down. 
When greatly animated, he seemed even to grow taller and 
taller, so that on some great occasion a lady said of him 
to Charles Greville : " Did you know, Thiers is handsome ! 
and is six feet high ! " 

When the fall of the Empire occurred, in September, 1870, 
M. Thiers was in Paris ; but when the Committee of De- 
fence was formed, he quitted the capital, before the arrival 



382 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

of the Prussians, to go from court to court, — to London, 
St. Petersburg, Vienna, — to implore the intervention of di- 
plomacy, and to prove how essential to the balance of power 
in Europe was the preservation of France. His feeling 
was that France ought promptly to have made peace after 
Sedan, that her cause then was hopeless for the moment, and 
that by making the best terms she could, and by husbanding 
her resources, she might rise in her might at a future day. 
These views were not m the least shared by Gambetta, who 
believed — as, indeed, most Frenchmen and most foreign- 
ers believed in 1870 — that a general uprising in France 
would be sufficient to crush the Prussians. Thiers knew 
better ; his .policy was to save France for herself and from 
herself at the same time. 

We already know the story. Gambetta escaped from 
Paris in a balloon, and joined Cr^mieux and Garnier- Pages, 
the other two members of the Committee of Defence who 
were outside of Paris. At Tours they had set up a sort of 
government, and there, in virtue of being the War Minis- 
ter of the Committee of Defence, Gambetta proceeded to 
take all power into his own hands, and to become dictator 
of masterless France. It was like a shipwreck in which, 
captain and officers being disabled, the command falls to 
the most able seaman. Gambetta had no legal right to 
govern France, but he governed it by right divine, as the 
only man who could govern it. 

This is how a newspaper writer speaks — and justly — of 
GambeUa's government : — 

" From the moment when he dropped, tired out with his jour- 
ney by balloon, into his chair in the archiepiscopal palace at 
Tours, and announced that he was invested with full powers to 
defend the country, no one throughout France seriously dis- 
puted his authority. His colleagues became his clerks. The 
treasury was empty, but he re-filled it. The arsenal was half 
empty, but in six weeks one great army, and almost two, were 
supphed with artillery, horses, gunners, and breech-loaders. 
The Lyons Reds had been told that they were wicked fools, 
and Communists and Anarchists ripe for revolt in Toulouse, 




LEON G AM B ETTA. 



FORMATION OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC. 383 

Lyons, and Marseilles had been put down. The respectables 
everywhere rose at his summons, anarchy and military disobedi- 
ence quailed." 

The fortunes of war forced Gambetta and his Government 
from the banks of the Loire to Bordeaux. There, at the 
close of January, 187 1, Jules Favre arrived from the Cen- 
tral Committee in Paris to announce, with shame and grief, 
that resistance was over : Paris had capitulated to the 
Prussians; and it only remained to elect a General Assem- 
bly which should create a regular government empowered 
to make peace with the enemy. 

For a few hours that night the fate of France hung trem- 
bling in the scales. Thiers was in Bordeaux. He was 
known to think that France could only save what was left 
by accepting the armistice. Gambetta was known to be 
for No Surrender I Which should prevail? Would the 
dictator lay aside his power without a struggle? 

Gambetta rose to the occasion during the night ; but 
here the histories of Thiers and Gambetta run together ; 
therefore, before I tell of what happened the next day, let 
me say a few words about the personal history of L^on 
Gambetta. He was only thirty-three years old at this 
time, having been born in 1838, when Thiers was forty-one 
years of age. 

Gambetta's birthplace was Cahors, that city in the South 
of France stigmatized by Dante as the abode of usurers 
and scoundrels. His family was Italian and came from 
Genoa, but he was born a Frenchman, though his Italian 
origin, temperament, and complexion were constantly cast 
up against him. In his infancy he had been intended for 
the priesthood, and was sent, when seven years old, to some 
place where he was to be educated and trained for it. He 
soon wrote to his father that he was so miserable that if he 
were not taken away he would put out one of his eyes, 
which would disqualify him for the priestly calling. His 
father took no notice of the childish threat, and Gambetta 
actually plucked out one of his own eyes. 

In 1868 he was a young lawyer in Paris; but his elo- 



384 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

quence and ability were known only at the Cafe Procope 
to a circle of admiring fellow-Bohemians. On All Saints 
Day, 1868, the Press, presuming on the recent relaxation of 
personal government by the emperor, applauded the crowds 
who went to cover with funeral wreaths the grave of Baudin 
at Pere la Chaise. Baudin had been the first man killed 
on Dec. 2, 185 1, when offering resistance to the cotcp d'etat. 
The Press was prosecuted for its utterances on this occasion. 
Gambetta defended one of the journals. Being an advocate, 
he could say what he pleased without danger of prosecution, 
and all Paris rang with the bitterness of his attack upon the 
Empire. From that moment he was a power in France. 
In person he was dark, short, stout, and somewhat vulgar, 
nor was there any social polish in his manners. 

Not long after his great speech in defence of the Press, 
in the matter of Baudin, Gambetta was elected to the 
Chamber by the working-men of Belleville, and at the 
same time by Marseilles. He entered the Chamber as 
one wholly irreconcilable with the Empire or the emperor. 
His eloquence was heart-stirring, and commanded attention 
even from his adversaries. 

When, on Sept. 4, 1870, the downfall of the Empire was 
proclaimed, Gambetta was made a member of the Council 
of Defence, and became Minister of the Interior. He re- 
mained in Paris until after the siege had begun ; but he 
burned to be where he could act, and obtained the consent 
of his colleagues to go forth by balloon and try to stir up 
a warlike spirit in the Provinces. He was made Minister 
of War in addition to being Minister of the Interior. From 
Nov. I, 1870, to Jan. 30, 187 1, his efforts were almost su- 
perhuman ; and but for Bazaine's surrender at Metz, they 
might have been successful. 

Gambetta raised two armies, — one under General Au- 
relles des Paladines and General Chanzy ; the other under 
Bourbaki and Garibaldi. The first was the Army of the 
Loire, the second of the Jura. 

When the plan of co-operation with Bazaine's one hun- 
dred and seventy-five thousand well-trained troops had 



FORMATION OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC. 385 

failed, and the Army of the Loire had been repulsed at 
Orleans, Gambetta with his Provisional Government moved 
to Bordeaux. Thither came Thiers, returned from his rov- 
ing embassy, — a mission of peace whose purpose had been 
defeated by the warlike movements of Gambetta's armies. 

Gambetta in the early days of his dictatorship wrote to 
Jules Favre : " France must not entertain one thought of 
peace." He sincerely believed any effort at negotiation with 
the Prussians an acknowledgment of weakness, and he 
fondly fancied that a httle more time and experience would 
turn his raw recruits into armies capable of driving back 
the Prussians, when the experienced generals and soldiers 
of France had failed. 

And now we have reached that terrible hour when news 
was received at Bordeaux that all Gambetta's efforts had 
been useless ; that Paris had consented to an armistice ; 
that an Assembly was to be elected, a National Govern- 
ment to be formed ; and that to resist these things or to 
persist longer in fighting the Prussians would be to provoke 
civil war. 

No wonder that Gambetta and Thiers, both devoted 
Frenchmen, both leaders of parties with opposing views, — 
the one resolved on No surrender, the other urging Peace 
on the best terms now procurable, — passed a terrible night 
after Jules Favre's arrival at Bordeaux, Gambetta debating 
what was his duty as the idol of his followers and as pro- 
visional dictator, Thiers dreading lest civil war might be 
kindled by the decision of his rival. 

Hardly less anxious were the days while a general elec- 
tion was going on. Bordeaux remained feverish and excited 
till February 13, when deputies from all parts of France met 
to decide their country's fate in the Bordeaux theatre. 
Notabilities from foreign countries were also there, to see 
what would be done at that supreme moment. 

Seven hundred and fifty deputies had been sent to the 
Assembly, and it was clear from the beginning that that 
body was not Republican. But the Anti-Republicans were 
divided into three parties, — Imperialists, Legitimists, and 

25 



386 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Orleanists,. each of which preferred an orderly and moderate 
republic to the triumph of either of the other two. More- 
over, that was not the time for dehberations concerning a 
permanent form of government. The deputies were met to 
make a temporary or provisional government, qualified to 
accept or to refuse the hard terms of peace offered by the 
Prussians. The two leaders of the Assembly were Thiers 
and Gambetta, — the one in favor of peace, the other of 
prolonging the war. We can see now how much wiser 
were the views of the elder statesman than those of the 
younger ; but we see also what a bitter pang Gambetta's 
patriotic spirit must have suffered by the downfall of his 
dictatorship. 

The Assembly had been three days in session, clamorous, 
riotous, and full of words, when in the middle of the after- 
noon of Feb. 1 6, 187 1, two delegates from Alsace and Lor- 
raine appeared, supported by Gambetta. The Speaker — 
that is, the president of die Assembly — was M. Jules Grevy, 
who had held the same office in 1848 • he found it hard to 
restrain the excitement of the deputies. The delegates 
came to implore France not to deliver them over to the 
Germans ; to remember that of all Frenchmen the Alsatians 
had been the most French in the days of the Revolution, 
and that in all the wars of France for more than a century 
they had suffered most of all her children. No wonder 
the hearts of all in the Assembly were stirred. 

"At this moment there appeared in the middle aisle of the 
theatre a small man, with wrinkled face and stubbly white hair. 
He seemed to have got there by magic, for no one had seen him 
spring into that place. He looked around him for an instant, 
much as a sailor glances over the sky in a storm, then, stretching 
out his short right arm, he made a curious downstroke which 
conveyed an impression of intense vitality and will. Profound 
silence was established in a moment. The elderly man then 
made another gesture, throwing his arm up, as if to say : ' Good ! 
Now you will listen.' He then, in a thin, piping, but distinctly 
audible voice, began a sharp practical address. Every one 
listened with the utmost attention ; none dared to interrupt him. 
He spoke for five minutes, nervously pounding the air from 



FORMATION OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC. 387 

time to time, and sometimes liowling his words at the listeners 
in a manner that made them cringe. He counselled modera- 
tion, accord, decency, but above all, instant action. 'The set- 
tlement of the Alsace-Lorraine question,' said he, ' will virtually 
decide whether we have peace or continued war with Prussia.' 
Then, with an imperious gesture of command, he turned away. 
' Come,' he said, ' let us to our committee-rooms, and let us say 
what we think.' " 

Two hours later, the committee appointed to recom- 
mend a chief of the executive power announced that its 
choice had fallen on this orator, M. Thiers. At once he 
was proclaimed head of the French Republic, but not 
before he had hurried out of the theatre. Then the ses- 
sion closed, and a quarter of an hour after, Lord Lyons, 
the English ambassador, had waited on M. Thiers to in- 
form him that Her Majesty's Government recognized the 
French Republic. 

From that moment, for more than two years, M. Thiers 
was the supreme ruler of France. His work was visible in 
every department of administration. Ministers, while his 
power lasted, simply obeyed his commands. 

There were some amusing, gossipy stories told in Bor- 
deaux of Thiers' entrance into possession of Gambetta's 
bachelor quarters at the Prefecture. " Pah ! what a smell 
of tobacco ! " he is said to have cried, as he strutted into 
his deposed rival's study. All his family joined him in 
bewailing the condition of the house ; and until it could be 
cleansed and purified they were glad to accept an invita- 
tion to take refuge in the archbishop's palace. In a few 
days all was put to rights, and a guard of honor was set to 
keep off intruders on the chiefs privacy. On the first day 
of this arrangement, M. Thiers addressed some question to 
the sentinel. The man was for a moment embarrassed 
how to answer him. M. Thiers was for the time the 
chief executive officer of the Republic, but he was not 
formally its president. The soldier's answer, '' Qui, mon 
Executif," caused much amusement. 

At this time there was no suspicion in men's minds 



388 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

that it was the intention of M. Thiers to form a perma- 
nent repubHc. The feehng of the country was RoyaHst. 
The difficulty was what royalty? It seemed to all men, 
and very probably to Thiers himself, that that question 
would be answered in favor of Henri V., the Comte de 
Chambord. 

Gambetta, resigning his power without a word, retired to 
San Sebastian, just over the Spanish frontier. There he 
lived in two small rooms over a crockery-shop. " He is 
jaded for want of sleep," writes a friend, *' and distressed by 
money matters." Much of his time he spent in fishing, no 
doubt meditating deeply on things present, past, and future. 

No pains were spared to induce him to give in his 
adhesion to one of the candidates for royalty. His best 
friend wrote thus to him : — 

" Those wretches the Communists have destroyed all my 
illusions, but perhaps I could have forgiven them but for their 
ingratitude to you. See how their newspapers have reviled 
you! A time may come when a republic may be possible in 
France ; but that day is not with us yet. Let us acknowledge 
that we have both made a mistake. As for you, with your un- 
rivalled genius you have now a patriotic career open before you, 
if you will cast in your lot with the men who are now going to 
try and quell anarchy." ^ 

Besides this, offers were made him of the prime minister- 
ship, a dukedom, a Grand Cordon, and other preferment ; 
but Gambetta only laughed at these proposals. He was a , 
man who had many faults, but he was always honest and 
true. Both he and M. Thiers were devoted Frenchmen,'' 
patriots in the truest sense of the word, and each took 
opposite views. That Thiers was right has been proved' 
by time. j 

On March i6 the Government of the Provisional Re- 
public removed from Bordeaux to Versailles. Nobody 
dreamed of the pending outbreak of the Commune ; all the 
talk was of fusion between the elder Bourbon branch and 
the House of Orleans. 

1 Clement Laurier, Cornhill Magazine, 1883. 



FORMATION OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC. 389 

Thiers was decidedly opposed to taking the seat of 
government to Paris, nor did he wish a new election for 
an Assembly; he preferred Fontainebleau for the seat of 
government, but fortunately (looking at the matter in the 
light of events) Versailles was chosen. 

Then, to the great indignation of Madame Thiers, the 
Royalists at once took measures to prevent M. Thiers from 
installing himself in Louis XIV. 's great bedchamber. 
^'The Chateau," they said, "was to become the abode of 
the National Legislature, the state rooms must be de- 
voted to the use of members, and the private apartments 
should be occupied by M. Grevy, the president of the 
Assembly." 

" M. Thiers would no doubt have liked very much to sleep 
in Louis XIV's bed, and to have for his study that fine room 
with the balcony from which the heralds used to announce in 
the same breath the death of one king and the accession of an- 
other. His secretary could not help saying that it seemed fit 
that the greatest of French national historians should be lodged 
in the apartments of the greatest of French kings ,• but as this 
idea did not make its way, M. and Madame Thiers yielded the 
point, saying that the chimneys smoked, and that the rooms 
were too large to be comfortable." 

On seeing a caricature in which some artist had repre- 
sented him as a ridiculous pigmy crowned with a cotton 
night- cap and lying in an enormous bed, surrounded by 
the majestic ghosts of kings, Thiers was at first half angry ; 
then he said : " Louis XIV. was not taller than I, and as 
to his other greatness, I doubt whether he ever would have 
had a chance of sleeping in the best bed of Versailles if he 
had begun life as I did." ^ 

So M. Thiers went to reside where the Emperor William 
had had his quarters, at the Prefecture of Versailles, and 
soon the palace was filled with refugees from Paris. Many 
of the state apartments were turned into hospital wards. 
Louis XIV. 's bedchamber was given up to the finance 
committee. 

^ Temple Bar. 



390 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

The thing to be done, with speed and energy, as all men 
felt, was to re-besiege Paris and put down the Commune. 
All parties united in this work ; but the conservatives con- 
fidently believed that when this was done, Thiers and the 
moderate RepubHcans would join them in giving France a 
stable government under the Comte de Chambord. 

On Sept. 19, 1 82 1, when that young prince was a year 
old, a public subscription throughout France had presented 
him with the beautiful old Chateau de Chambord, built on 
the Loire by Francis L, and from which he adopted his title 
when in exile. 

After the young prince had been removed from his 
mother's influence, he was carefully brought up in the most 
Bourbon of Bourbon traditions. When he became a man 
he travelled extensively in Europe. In 1841 he broke his 
leg by falling from his horse, and was slightly lame for the 
rest of his life. In 1846 he married Marie Therese Beatrix 
of Modena, who was even more strictly Bourbon than him- 
self. He and his wife retired to Frohsdorf, a beautiful 
country seat not very far from Vienna. There they were 
constantly visited by travelling Frenchmen of all parties, and 
on no one did the prince fail to make a favorable impres- 
sion. He was good, upright, cultivated, kindly, but inflexi- 
bly wedded to the traditions of his family. He loved France 
with his whole soul, and was glad of anything that brought 
her good and glory. But France was his, — his by divine 
right ; and this right France must acknowledge. After that, 
there was not anything he would not do for her. 

But France was not willing to efface all her history from 
1792 to 1871, with the exception of the episode of the 
Restoration, when school histories were circulated mention- 
ing Marengo, Austerlitz, etc., as victories gained under the 
king's lieutenant-general, M. de Bonaparte. 

During the Empire, under Napoleon III., the Comte de 
Chambord had remained nearly passive at Frohsdorf. His 
life was passed in meditation, devotion, the cultivation of 
literary tastes, and a keen interest in all the events that 
were passing in his native country. During the Franco- 





COMTE DE CHAMBORD. 



FORMATION OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC. 39 1 

Prussian war he sent words of encouragement to his suffer- 
ing countrymen, and nobly refrained from embarrassing 
the affairs of France by any personal intrigues ; but when the 
war and the Commune were over, and his chances of the 
throne grew bright, he issued a proclamation which has 
been called " an act of political suicide." 

On May 8, three weeks before the downfall of the Com- 
mune, he put forth his first manifesto. Here is what an 
English paper said of it a few days before his next — the 
suicidal — proclamation appeared : — 

" The Comte de Chambord does not, of course, surrender his 
own theory of his own place on earth, but he does offer some 
grave pledges intended to diminish suspicion as to the deduc- 
tion he draws from his claim to be king by right divine. He 
renounces formally and distinctly any intention of exercising 
absolute power, and pledges himself, as he says, ' to submit all 
acts of his government to the careful control of representatives 
freely elected.' He declares that if restored he will not inter- 
fere with equahty, or attempt to establish privileges. He 
promises complete amnesty, and employment under his gov- 
ernment to men of all parties ; and finally he pledges himself to 
secure effectual guarantees for the Pope [then trembling on his 
temporal throne in Italy]." 

The English journalist continues, — 

" The tone of this whole paper is that of a man who believes 
that a movement will be made in his favor which may succeed, 
if only the factions most likely to resist can be temporarily con- 
ciliated. There is no especial reason that we can see that he 
should not be chosen. He has neither sympathized with the 
Germans, nor received support from them. He has not bom- 
barded Paris. He is not more hated than any other king would 
be, — perhaps less ; for Paris has no gossip to tell of his career. 
Indeed, there are powerful reasons in favor of the choice. His 
restoration, since the Comte de Paris is his heir, would elimi- 
nate two of the dynastic parties which distract France, and 
would relink the broken chain of history. And to a people so 
weary, so dispirited, so thirsty for repose, that of itself must 
have a certain charm." 

But all these advantages he destroyed for himself by a 
new proclamation issued five weeks later. In it he said, — 



392 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, 

" I can neither forget that the monarchical right is the patri- 
mony of the nation, nor decline the duties which it imposes on 
me. I will fulfil these duties, believe me, on my word as an 
honest man and as a king." 

So far was good ; but proceeding to announce that 
thenceforward he assumed the title of Henri V., he goes on 
to apostrophize the " White Flag " of the Bourbons. He 
says, — 

" I received it as a sacred trust from the old king my grand- 
father when he was dying in exile. It has always been for me 
inseparable from the remembrance of my absent country. It 
waved above my cradle, and I wish to have it shade my tomb. 
Henri V. cannot abandon the ' White Flag ' of Henri IV," 

This manifesto, wTitten without consulting those who 
were working for his cause in France, settled the question 
of his eligibility. France was not willing, for the sake of 
Henri V., to give up her tricolor, — the flag of so many 
memories. Its loss had been the bitterest humiliation that 
the nation had had to sufifer at the Restoration. 

The Comte de Chambord's own friends were cruelly 
disappointed ; the moderate Republicans, who had been 
ready to accept him as a constitutional monarch, said at 
once that he was far too Bourbon. There was no longer 
any hope, unless he could be persuaded, on some other 
convenient occasion, to renounce the "White Flag." 

This matter being settled by the Comte de Chambord 
himself, all M. Thiers' attention was turned to two things, 
— the disposal of the Communist prisoners, and the pay- 
ment of the indemnity demanded by the Germans, the five 
milliards. 

We are glad to know that Thiers disapproved of the 
revengeful feeling that pervaded politicians and society, 
regarding the Communist prisoners. He tried to save 
General Rossel, and failed. Rochefort and others he pro- 
tected. He wished for a general amnesty, excluding only 
the murderers of Thomas, Lecomte, and the hostages. He 
said, when some one was speaking to him of the sufferings 



FORMATION OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC. 393 

of those Communists (or supposed Communists) who were 
confined at Satory and in the Orangerie at Versailles : " It 
was dreadful, but it could not be avoided. We had twenty 
thousand prisoners, and not more than four hundred police 
to keep guard over them. We had to depend on the 
rough methods of an exasperated soldiery." 

As to the indemnity, the promptness with which it was 
paid was marvellous. The great bankers all over Europe, 
especially those of Jewish connection, came forward and 
advanced the money. In eighteen months the five mil- 
liards of francs were in the coffers of the Emperor William, 
and the last Prussian soldier had quitted the soil of France. 
The loan raised by the Government for the repayment of 
the sums advanced for the indemnity was taken up with 
enthusiasm by all classes of the French people. 

The horrible year of 1 871 was followed by one of perfect 
peace and great prosperity. The title of President of the 
French Republic was conferred on M. Thiers for seven 
years. '^ The nation seemed re-flowering, like a large plan- 
tation in a spring which follows a hard winter." Trade 
revived- The traces of war and civil strife were effaced 
with amazing promptness from the streets of Paris. The 
army and all public services were reorganized, and to 
crown these blessings, the land yielded such a harvest as 
had not been seen for half a century. M. Thiers was never 
much addicted to religious emotion ; but when, on a Sunday 
in July, 1872, the news came to him by telegram of the 
glorious ingathering of the harvest in the South of France, 
he was quite overcome. " Let us thank God," he cried, 
clasping his hands. *' He has heard us ; our mourning is 
ended ! " 

M. Thiers was by that time living in Paris in the Elysee. 
He had continued to reside at the Prefecture of Versailles 
while the Assembly was in session, but he came to the Ely- 
see during its recess, and kept a certain state there. Yet 
he never would submit himself to the restraints of etiquette. 
One who knew him well says : — 



394 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

" He was bourgeois to the finger-tips. His character was a cu- 
rious effervescing mixture of talent, learning, vanity, childish 
petulance, inquisitiveness, sagacity, ecstatic patriotism, and am- 
bition. He was a splendid orator, with the voice of an old 
coster-woman; a >y<2;'zy«;2/ with the presumption of a school-boy; 
a kind-hearted man, with the irritability of a monkey ; a mas- 
terly administrator, with that irresistible tendency to inter- 
meddle with everything which is intolerable to subordinates. 
He had a sincere love of Hberty, with the instincts of a despot." 

M. Thiers had during his long life been a collector of 
pictures, bronzes, books, manuscripts, and curious relics. His 
house in the Place Saint-Georges was a museum of these 
treasures, but a museum so arranged that it contributed to 
sociability and the enjoyment of his visitors. He had ac- 
quired this taste for collecting in his early days at Aix. 
During the Commune his house was razed to the ground, 
not one stone being left upon another. 

When the Commune put forth its decree for this act of 
vandalism, Thiers' consternation was pathetic. The ladies 
of his family did everything that feminine energy and inge- 
nuity could suggest to avert the calamity. But when the 
destruction had taken place, Thiers bore his loss with dig- 
nity. His collections were very fine, but he had always 
been afraid of their being damaged, and did not show them 
to strangers. When the Commune sent the painter Cour- 
bet to appraise their value, he estimated the bronzes alone 
at ^300,000.-^ M. Thiers' collection of Persian, Chinese, 
and Japanese curios was also almost unique. After the over- 
throw of the Commune, Madame Thiers and her sister did 
their utmost to recover such of these treasures as had passed 
into the hands of dealers. Many of these men gave back 
their purchases, and none demanded extravagant prices. 
A great deal was recovered, and the house on the Place 
Saint-Georges was rebuilt at the public cost. 

It was on the 5th of September, 1872, that the last Ger- 
man soldier quitted France and the five milliards of francs 

1 Le Figaro. 



FORMATION OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC. 395 

(in our money a thousand millions of dollars) had been 
paid.^ 

I borrow the words of another writer speaking of this 
supreme effort on the part of France : — 

'•After the most frightful defeat of modern times, with one 
third of her territory in the enemy's hands, with her capital in 
insurrection, and her available army all required to restore or- 
der, France in eighteen months paid a fine equal to one fourth 
of the EngHsh National Debt ; elected a bourgeois of genius to 
her head; obeyed him on points on which she disagreed with 
him ; and endured a foreign occupation without giving one single 
pretext for real severity. . . . The people of France had no vis- 
ible chiefs ; the only two men who rose to the occasion were M. 
Thiers and Gambetta. If M. Thiers showed tact, wisdom, and 
above all courage and firmness, in probably the most difficult 
position in which man was ever placed, surely we may pause to 
admire Gambetta. . . . Daring in all things, under the Empire 
he denounced Napoleonism, and by his eloquence and courage 
he guided timid millions and rival factions from the day when 
Napoleon III. was deposed. Under the Empire he had yearned 
to restore the true life of the nation ; when the Empire was 
overturned he could not believe that that life was impaired. He 
thought it would be easy for France to rise as one man and 
drive out the invader. As each terrible defeat was experienced, 
he regarded it as only a momentary reverse. He had such 
abounding faith in his cause, — the cause of France, the cause 
of French Republicanism, — that he could not believe in failure. 
Of course, to have been a more clear-sighted statesman, like M. 
Thiers, would have been best ; but there is something very noble 
in the blind zeal of this disappointed man." 

It moves one to pity to think of Gambetta weeping in 

1 When looking over letters and papers concerning this period, I 
found among them many original notes from M. and Madame Thiers. 
They all had broad black borders. I learned afterwards that Thiers 
and his family used mourning paper so long as a single German sol- 
dier remained on French soil. Thiers' writing was thick and splashy. 
He always wrote with a quill pen. Early in life he had, like Sir 
Walter Raleigh, projected a History of the World; and as he never 
wrote of anything whose locality he had not seen, he had made his 
preparations to circumnavigate the globe, when he was arrested by 
the state of public affairs while on his way to Havre. 



396 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

the streets of Bordeaux, as we are told he did, when the 
bitter news of the surrender of Paris made all his labors 
useless, and dashed to the ground his cherished hopes. 
Without one word to trouble the flow of events that were 
taking a course contrary to all his expectations, he resigned 
his dictatorship when it could no longer be of service to his 
country, and took himself out of the way of intrigues in his 
favor, passing over the Spanish frontier. As soon as the 
Germans were out of France, M. Thiers also was prepared to 
resign his power. He called a National Assembly to deter- 
mine the form of government. 

There were several points of primary importance to be 
settled at once ; first : should France be a monarchy, or a 
republic ? 

That she would again become a monarchy was generally 
anticipated ; but the Comte de Chambord had, as we have 
seen, forfeited his chances for the moment. If France were 
a republic, who should be her president ? Should there be 
a vice-president? Should the president be elected by the 
Chamber, or by a vote of the people ? Should there be one 
Chamber, or two ? 

M. Thiers was opposed to having any vice-president, 
and was in favor of two Chambers. He vehemently urged 
the continuance of the Republic, saying that a monarchy 
was impossible. There was but one throne, and there were 
three dynasties to dispute it. On one occasion he said : 
" Gentlemen, I am an old disciple of the monarchy [he 
was probably alluding to the opinions which his mother and 
his grandmother had endeavored to instil into him] . I am 
what is called a Monarchist who practises Republicanism 
for two reasons, — first, because he agreed to do so, secondly, 
because practically he can do nothing else." 

The Assembly proclaimed the continuance of the Re- 
public, and likewise the continuance of M. Thiers as its 
president for seven years. 

On several occasions after this, M. Thiers carried his 
point with the Assembly by threatening to resign ; and as 
the Assembly was quite aware how difficult it would be to 



FORMATION OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC. 397 

put any one in his place, the threat always resulted in his 
victory. 

The immediate cause which led to the fall of M. Thiers 
on May 24, 1873, after he had sat for two years and a 
month in the presidential chair, was a dispute concerning 
the election of M. Charles de Remusat (son of the lady 
who has given her memoirs to the world). M. de Remusat 
was the Government candidate for a deputyship vacant in 
the Paris representation. He was at the time Thiers' Min- 
ister for Foreign Affairs, a personal friend of the president, a 
distinguished man of letters, and an old Orleanist converted 
to Republicanism. The opposing candidate was M. Barodet, 
a Radical of extreme opinions. The Monarchists also 
brought forward their candidate. He had only twenty- 
seven thousand votes ; but these succeeded in defeating M. 
de Remusat, who had one hundred and thirty-five thousand, 
while the Radicals voted solidly for Barodet, giving him 
one hundred and fifty-five thousand. 

The blame of this defeat was thrown on M. Thiers. The 
Monarchists, who had once called him ''that illustrious 
statesman," nov/ spoke of him as " a fatal old man." They 
attacked him in the Assembly ; the Radicals supported 
them. M. Thiers was defeated on some measure that he 
wished should pass, and sent in his resignation. It was ac- 
cepted by three hundred and sixty-two votes against three 
hundred and forty- eight. He had fallen ; and yet a plebiscite 
throughout the country would have given a large popular 
vote in favor of the man " who had found France defeated, 
her richest provinces occupied, her capital in the hands of 
savages, and had concluded peace and restored order, and 
found the stupendous sum required for the liberation and 
organization of the country, founding the Republic, and 
bringing order and prosperity back once more." Indeed, 
the peasants even credited him with their good harvests 
and the revival of spirit in the army, till they almost felt for 
him a sentiment of personal loyalty. 

Expelled from power when seventy-eight years of age, 
M. Thiers retired to a little sunny, dusty entresol on the 



398 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Boulevard Malesherbes, where the noise and glare greatly 
disturbed him. At Tours, in the lull of events before the 
surrender of Paris, he had collected books and studied 
botany. As soon as he was installed on the Boulevard 
Malesherbes he asked Leverrier, the astronomer, to con- 
tinue with him the astronomical studies with which at Ver- 
sailles he had indulged himself in brief moments of leisure, 
remarking that he had seen a good deal of the perversity of 
mankind, and that he now wished to refresh himself with 
the orderly works of God. 

Shortly after this he removed to better quarters, where 
his rooms opened on a garden. In this garden he received 
his friends on Sunday mornings from seven to nine, attired 
in a wadded, brown cashmere dressing-gown, a broad- 
brimmed hat, a black cravat, patent-leather shoes, and 
black gaiters. As he talked, he held his magnifying-glass 
in his hand, ready to examine any insect or blade of grass 
that might come under observation. 

One more great service he rendered to his country. 
Prince Bismarck, alarmed by the state of things in France, 
showed symptoms of intending to seize Belfort, that fortress 
in the Vosges which had never surrendered to the Germans, 
and which France had been permitted to retain. Thiers 
induced Russia to intervene, and went to Switzerland to 
thank Prince Gortschakoff personally for his services on the 
occasion. 

Thiers died at Saint- Germains four years after his down- 
fall, at the age of eighty-two. His last earthly lodging 
was in the Pavilion Henri IV. (now an hotel), where Louis 
XIV. was born. 

By his will he left the State, not only all his collections, 
which so far as possible he had restored, but the numerous 
historical materials which he had gathered for his works, as 
well as his house, after his wife's death, in the Place Saint- 
Georges. The collections are there as he left them; the 
historical documents have been removed to the Archives. 

To Marseilles, his native city, he left his water-color 
copies of the chief works of the great masters in Italy. 



FORMATION OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC. 399 

Thiers was childless. Whatever may have been the per- 
sonal relations in which he stood to his wife, no woman 
was ever more truly devoted to the interests of her hus- 
band. She seems to have lived but for him. 

People in society laughed at her plain dressing and her 
careful housekeeping ; but " her heart dilated with gladness 
when she felt that the eyes of the world were fixed with 
admiration on M. Thiers." Her manner to him was that 
of a careful and idolizing nurse, his to her too often that 
of a petulant child. She always called him M. Thiers, he 
always addressed her as Madame Thiers, — indeed, he is 
almost unknown by his name of Adolphe, nor do men often 
speak of him simply as Thiers. " Monsieur Thiers " he was 
and will always be in history, whose tribunal he said he 
was not afraid to face. Even his cards were, contrary to 
French custom, always printed " Monsieur Thiers." 

Both. M. and Madame Thiers were very early risers, and 
both had an inconvenient habit of falling asleep at inoppor- 
tune times. 

To the last, Madame Thiers took a loving interest in 
Belfort, because her husband had saved it from the Ger- 
mans. Its poor were objects of her especial solicitude. 
Only an hour before her death, hearing that the Maire of 
Belfort had called, she expressed a wish to see him, and 
endeavored to address him, pointing to a bust of M. Thiers ; 
but she was unable to make herself understood j her powers 
of speech had failed her. 

Two rules M. Thiers never departed from : one was, as 
he said himself, '' to defend ferociously the public purse," 
the other, never to give house-room to any but first-rate 
objects of art. Some of his pictures were very dear to 
him. Several of his bronzes, which were pillaged by the 
Commune and never recovered, were mourned by him as if 
they had been his friends. He had been wont to call them 
" the school-masters of his soul." 



CHAPTER XIX. 

THREE FRENCH PRESIDENTS. 

MARSHAL MacMAHON, the Duke of Magenta, was 
of Irish descent, his ancestors having followed 
James II. into exile, and distinguished themselves at the 
Battle of the Boyne. Their descendant, Patrice (or 
Patrick), the subject of this sketch, was the sixteenth of 
seventeen children. 

He was born when French glory was at its height, under 
the First Empire, in the summer of 1806. When he was 
seventeen he was sent to the military school at Saint-Cyr. 
There his Irish dash and talent soon won him renown. In 
Algeria he acquired fame and fortune and the Cross of the 
Legion of Honor. In 1830 he went to the siege of An- 
twerp, at the time when the French insisted on promoting a 
revolution in Belgium, and the moment that enterprise was 
over, he retired to Algeria. At twenty-five he was a captain 
and had distinguished himself at the siege of Constantine, 
fighting side by side with the Due de Nemours and that 
other French officer of Irish descent, Marshal Niel. At 
forty-four he was a general of division, and had seen 
twenty-seven years of service. The Arabs called him the 
Invulnerable. 

Lie went to the Crimean War, and there led the attack 
on the Malakoff, holding his post until the place was won. 
Devoted to his profession, he was diffident in society. He 
was named a senator by Napoleon HI. after his return 
from the Crimea, but declined to take his seat, refusing at 
the same time some other proffered honors. He was sent 



THREE FRENCH PRESIDENTS. 40 1 

back to Algeria at his own request, and stayed there, fight- 
ing the Arabs, for five years. Then, returning to Paris, he 
took his seat in the Senate, where he opposed some of the 
arbitrary decrees of the emperor.^ 

In the ItaUan War in 1859 he fought with distinguished 
bravery, and on the battlefield of Magenta was made a 
Marshal of France and Duke of Magenta. After being 
ambassador at Berhn he was sent to bear the emperor's 
congratulations to King William on his accession, and to 
attend his coronation. He was again sent to Algeria as its 
governor-general. He had already married Marie, daugh- 
ter of the Due de Castries. She was very rich, and con- 
nected with some of the most opulent bankers in Vienna. 

Marshal MacMahon came back to France at the outbreak 
of the Franco-Prussian War, and was given the command of 
the First Army Corps ; but the emperor insisted on com- 
manding his own armies as general-in-chief. The day be- 
fore the surrender at Sedan, Marshal MacMahon had been 
badly wounded, and had to resign his command to General 
Ducrot. Ducrot being also wounded, it became the sad 
duty of General Wimpffen to sign the capitulation. Mar- 
shal MacMahon was taken as a prisoner to Wiesbaden, 
where he remained till the close of the war. He got back 
to Paris forty-eight hours before the outbreak of the Com- 
mune. A commander was needed for the forces of France. 
M. Thiers chose Marshal MacMahon, who with tears in his 
eyes thanked him for the opportunity of retrieving his lost 
reputation and doing service for France. After he had col- 
lected his army, which it took some weeks to bring back 
from Germany, to equip, and to reorganize, his men fought 
desperately for seven days, pushing their way step by step 
into the heart of the capital, till on May 28, 18 71, the mar- 
shal addressed a proclamation to France, informing French- 
men that the Commune was at an end. He then passed 
out of public sight, eclipsed by the superior radiance of 

1 Temple Bar, " Courts of the three Presidents, Thiers, MacMahon, 
and Grevy," 1884. 

26 



402 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, 

Thiers and Gambetta. But as time went on, and it was 
determined by the Monarchists to coalesce with the ex- 
treme Radicals and get rid of M. Thiers, who was laboring 
to establish a law and order Republic, the newspapers of 
both the Conservative and Radical parties began to exalt 
the marshal's merits at the expense of " that sinister old 
man," M.Thiers. After six months of this trumpet-blowing 
by the opposition Press, the idea was planted in the minds 
of Frenchmen that Marshal MacMahon was the statesman 
who might bring France out of all her difficulties. 

It was ascertained by the Monarchists that Marshal Mac- 
Mahon would accept the presidency if it were offered him^ 
and would consider himself a stop-gap until such time as 
France should make up her mind whether the Comte de 
Chambord or some one else should be her king. 

The attack on M. Thiers was then organized. M. Thiers 
was defeated. He sent in his resignation, and it was ac- 
cepted by a small majority in the Chamber. A moment 
after, Marshal MacMahon was proposed as his successor, 
and immediately elected (May 24, 1873). 

At this time the parties in the French Chamber were 
seven, and their policy was for two or more of them to com- 
bine for any temporary object. Legitimists, Orleanists, and 
Bonapartists formed the Right ; Anarchists, Red Republi- 
cans, and decided Republicans formed the Left ; while the 
Centre was made up of men of moderate opinions of all 
parties who were willing to accept an orderly and stable 
government of any kind. This party may be said to repre- 
sent to the present hour the prevailing state of public feeling 
in France. 

The three parties on the Left quarrelled fiercely among 
themselves ; the three parties on the Right did the same. 
Both Left and Right, however, were eager to rally the Centre 
to their side. The coalitions, hatreds, and misunderstand- 
ings of these seven parties constitute for eighteen yeais 
almost the entire history, of the Third Republic. 

In 1873 the Monarchists, — that is, the three parties on the 
Right — were stronger than the combined parties on the Left. 



THREE FRENCH PRESIDENTS. 403 

but not so strong if the Moderates of the Centre voted 
with the Left Repubhcans. Again, if the Legitimists, Or- 
leanists, and the Centre should unite, and the Bonapartists 
should go over to the Left, the Left would be the stronger. 

The Due de Broglie, an excellent man, grandson of 
Madame de Stael, was made President MacMahon's prime 
minister. So far the Monarchists had prospered. They had 
command of the president, the Assembly, and the army. 
These were all prepared to accept Henri V., provided he 
would retreat from the position he had taken up in 18 71, 
consent to become a constitutional sovereign, give up his 
White Flag, and accept the Tricolor. The Monarchists 
appointed a Committee of Nine to negotiate this matter 
with the prince at Frohsdorf; but Marshal MacMahon 
gave them this warning : " If the White Flag is raised 
against the Tricolor, the chassepots will go off of themselves, 
and I cannot answer for order in the streets or for discipline 
in the army." 

With great difficulty the nine succeeded in procuring an 
assurance from the Comte de Chambord that he would 
leave the question of the flag to be decided in concert 
with the Assembly after his restoration. Meantime he 
came to Versailles and remained hidden in the house of 
one of his supporters. Everybody urged him to accept 
the conditions on which alone he could reign, and fulfil 
the hopes of his faithful followers. They implored him to 
ascend the throne as a constitutional sovereign, and to ac- 
cept the Tricolor, in deference to the wishes of the people 
and his friends. 

He passed an entire night in miserable indecision, walk- 
ing up and down his friend's dining-room, debating with 
himself whether he would give way. It had been arranged 
that the next day he should present himself suddenly in the 
Assembly, be hailed with acclamation by his supporters, and 
be introduced by the marshal-president himself as Henri 
Cinq. The building was to be guarded by faithful troops, 
the telegraph was prepared to flash the news through 
France, the very looms at Lyons were weaving silks bro- 



404 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

caded with fleurs de lys. But Henri V. could not bring 
himself to comply. He fled away from Versailles before 
dawn. "He is an honest man/' said M. Thiers, "and will 
not put his flag in his pocket." A few days later he pub- 
hshed at Salzburg a letter in which he protested against the 
pressure his friends had brought to bear on him. " Never," 
he said, " will I become a revolutionary king," by which he 
meant a king who reigned under a constitution ; never, he 
protested, would he sacrifice his honor to the exigencies of 
parties ; " and," he concluded, " never will I disclaim the 
standard of Arques and of Ivry ! " 

"The count," said an Enghsh newspaper, "seems to have 
forgotten that Arques and Ivry were Protestant victories." 

"My person," continued the count, "is nothing; my 
principle is everything. I am the indispensable pilot, the 
only man capable of guiding the vessel into port, because 
for this I have mission and authority." 

Thus ended all chances for Henri V. The Orleans 
princes, having concluded a compact with him as his heirs, 
felt themselves bound in honor to refuse to accept any com- 
promise which " the head of the family " did not approve. 

It can be easily imagined how provoked and disappointed 
were all those who had rallied to the king's party. There 
remained nothing to do but to strengthen the Republic and 
to provide it with a permanent constitution. A Commit- 
tee of Thirty was appointed to draw up the document. The 
constitution was very conservative. It has now been in 
force nineteen years, but it has never worked smoothly, and 
the object of the extreme Republicans, who have clamored 
for "revision," has been to eliminate its conservative ele- 
ments and make it Red Republican. It is impossible for a 
people who change their government so often to have much 
respect or love for any constitution. 

The Marshal-Duke of Magenta had accepted the presi- 
dency without any great desire to retain it ; nevertheless, he 
established his household on a semi-royal footing, as though 
he intended, as some thought, that there should be at least 
a temporary court, to prepare the way for what might be at 



THREE FRENCH PRESIDENTS. 



405 



hand. M. Thiers had been a bourgeois president ; the mar- 
shal was a grand seigneur. M. Thiers' servants had been 
clothed in black ; the marshal's wore gay liveries of scarlet 
plush, and gray and silver. When M. Thiers took part in 
any public ceremony he drove in a handsome landau 
with a mounted escort of Republican Guards, and his 
friends (he never called them his suite^ followed as they 
pleased in their own carriages. But the marshal's equi- 
pages were painted in three shades of green, and lined 
with pearl-gray satin. They were drawn by four gray 
horses, with postihons and outriders. To see M. Thiers 
on business was as easy as it is to see the President at 
the White House. Anybody could be admitted on send- 
ing a letter to his secretary. To journalists he was always 
accessible, believing himself still to belong to their profes- 
sion. But to approach the marshal was about as hard as 
to approach a king, and he hated above all things news- 
paper writers. 

In 1873 the Shah of Persia came to Paris, and the mar- 
shal entertained him magnificently. He gave him a torch- 
light procession of soldiers, a gala performance at the Grand 
Opera, and a banquet in the Galerie des Glaces at Versailles. 
The Parisians regretted that the visit had not been made in 
M. Thiers' time, when society might have been amused by 
stories of how the omniscient little president had instructed 
the shah, through an interpreter, as to Persian history and the 
etymology of Oriental languages ; but society had a good 
story connected with the visit, after all. During the state 
banquet at Versailles the shah turned to the Duchess of 
Magenta, and asked her, in a French sentence some one 
had taught him for the occasion, why her husband did not 
make himself emperor. 

The marshal was content to hold his place as president, 
and the Due de Broglie governed for him, except in any- 
thing relating to military affairs. On these the marshal 
always had his way. 

The Due de Broglie's government, which was all in the 
interest of the monarchical principle, became distrusted 



406 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

and unpopular. In one year twenty-one Republicans and 
six Bonapartists gained seats in the Assembly, while the 
Orleanist and Legitimist parties gained not one. By 1874 
the cause of royalty in France was at a low ebb. In this 
year — a year after the downfall of M. Thiers — the Due 
de Broglie was defeated in the Chamber on some measure 
of small importance ; but his defeat turned him summarily 
out of office. The Left Centre — that is, the Republicans 
from conviction — was the strongest of the seven parties. 
The Republic seemed established on a basis of law and 
order. 

According to the constitution, the president was chosen 
for seven years, with the chance of re-election ; the Chamber 
of Deputies was elected for seven years by universal suf- 
frage, but every year one third of its members had to retire 
into private life or stand for a new election. The Senate 
was chosen by a complicated arrangement, — partly by the 
Chamber, partly by a sort of electoral college, the members 
of which were drawn from the councils of departments, 
the an'ondissements, and the municipalities of cities. As 
Gambetta said : " So chosen, it could not be a very demo- 
cratic assemblage." 

'' Arrondissement," in the political language of our Southern 
States, would be translated electoral districts either in town 
or country. In the Northern States it would mean districts 
for the cities, townships in the country. 

The Speaker, or President of the Chamber, at Tours, at 
Bordeaux, and at Versailles, until a month before the down- 
fall of M. Thiers, had been the immaculately respectable M. 
Jules Grevy, who had entered public life in 1848. He had 
been deposed during the period when the Monarchists had 
strength and felt sure of the throne for Henri V., and he 
had been replaced by a M. Buffet. It was M. Buffet who 
became prime minister on the downfall of the Due de 
Broglie. Marshal MacMahon by no means relished being 
governed by a cabinet composed of men of more advanced 
repubUcan opinions than his own. But it is useless to go 
deeper into the parliamentary squabbles of this period. 



THREE FRENCH PRESIDENTS. 



407 



Then began the quarrel of which we have read so often 
in Associated Press telegrams, — the dispute concerning the 
sci'utin de liste and the scrutin d'arrondissement. " Scrutin " 
means ballot ; •' scrutin de liste " means that electors might 
choose any Frenchman as their candidate ; " scrutin d'arron- 
dissement," that they must confine their choice to some man 
living in the district for which he wished to stand. The 
Left disapproved the scrutin d'arrondissenienf, which gave 
too much scope, it said, for local interests to have weight 
over political issues. In our own country local interests 
are provided for by State legislatures, and in elections for 
Congress the scrutin d' ai-j'ondissenient \^ adopted. 

On the last day of December, 1875, the National Assem- 
bly was dissolved. Confused, uninteresting, factious as it 
had been on points of politics, it had at least taught French- 
men something of parliamentary tactics and the practical 
system of compromise. The American government is said 
to be based on compromise. In France, " all or nothing " 
had been the cry of French parties from the beginning. 

The leader of the Left was now Gambetta, who managed 
matters with discretion and in a spirit of compromise. 
From this policy his immediate followers have been called 
" opportunists," because they stood by, watching the course 
of events, ready to promote their own plans at every 
opportunity. 

The new Assembly proved much too republican to please 
the marshal. In every way his situation perplexed and 
worried him. He was not a man of eminent ability, and 
had never been trained to politics. He had been used to 
govern as a soldier. His head may have been a little turned 
by the flatteries so freely showered on him before his elec- 
tion, and he had come to entertain a behef that he was in- 
dispensable to France. He saw himself the protector of 
order against revolutionary passions, and conceived himself 
to be adored as the sole hope of the people. '' Believing 
this, he could hardly have been expected to conform to the 
simple formulas which govern the councils of constitutional 
kings." Moreover, behind the marshal was his friend the 



408 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Due de Broglie, '^ now counselling compromise and now 
resistance, but always meditating a sudden blow in favor of 
monarchy." 

By the close of 1876 it became so evident that the gov- 
ernment of France could not be carried on upon strictly 
conservative principles that even the Due de Broglie ad- 
vised the marshal to form a Cabinet from the Left, under 
the prime ministership of M. Jules Simon. This gentle- 
man had been one of the five Jules's in the Committee of 
Defence in 1870. He was an upright man, very liberal in 
his opinions, and philosophic in his tendencies, which made 
him especially unacceptable to Marshal MacMahon. 

Simon formed a ministry, which governed, with perpetual 
parliamentary disputes, till May 16, 1877. On that day 
Marshal MacMahon sent a letter to his prime minister, 
telling him that he did not appear to have sufficient support 
in the Chamber to carry on the government, and reproach- 
ing him with his Radical tendencies. Of course the minister 
and his colleagues at once resigned. The marshal then 
dissolved the Chamber, and appealed to the people, placing 
the Due de Broglie ad interim at the head of affairs. 

In spite of all the marshal and his friends could do to 
secure a Conservative majority in the new Chamber, it was 
largely and strongly RepubHcan. There was no help for it ; 
as Gambetta said, the marshal must either se soumettre, ou 
se dime lire, — choose submission or dismission. 

He had a passing thought of again dissolving the unruly 
Chamber, and governing by the Senate alone. He found, 
however, that the country did not consider him indispen- 
sable, and was prepared to put M. Thiers in his place if he 
resigned. 

But M. Thiers did not live to receive that proof of his 
country's gratitude. He died, as we have seen, in the sum- 
mer of 1877, and the next choice of the Republican party 
was M. Jules Grevy. 

For two years longer the marshal held the reins of gov- 
ernment, but he resigned on being required to sign a reso- 
lution changing the generals who commanded the four 




PRESIDENT JULES GREVY. 



THREE FRENCH PRESIDENTS. 409 

army corps. " In a letter full of dignity," says M. Gabriel 
Monod, " and which appeared quite natural on the part of 
a soldier more concerned for the interests of the army than 
for those of politics, he tendered his resignation. The two 
Chambers met together, and in a single sitting, without noise 
or disturbance, M. Jules Gr^vy was elected, and proclaimed 
president of the French Republic for seven years." 

It is said that in 1830, when Charles X. published his 
ordinances and placarded his proclamation on the walls of 
Paris, a young law- student, who was tearing down one of 
them, was driven off with a kick by one of the king's officers. 
The officer was Patrice MacMahon ; the law-student Jules 
Grevy. 

M. Grevy was pre-eminently respectable. He was born 
in the Jura mountains, Aug. 15, 1813. His father was a 
small proprietor. Diligence and energy rather than bril- 
liancy distinguished the young Jules in his college career. 
When his college life ended, he went up to Paris and 
studied for the Bar. MacMahon's kick roused his pugnacity. 
He went home, took down an old musket, and joined the 
insurgents, leading an attack upon some barracks where the 
fighting was severe. The Revolution having ended in a 
constitutional monarchy, he went into a lawyer's office, 
and plodded on in obscurity for eighteen years. 

In 1848 he rendered services to the Provisional Govern- 
ment, and the farmers of his district in the Jura elected him 
their deputy. He went into the Chamber as an Advanced 
Republican, and voted for the banishment of the Orleans 
family, for a republic without a president, and for other 
extreme measures. Before long he was elected vice-presi- 
dent of the Chamber. 

Then came the Empire, and M. Grevy went back to his 
law-books. He and his brother must have prospered at the 
Bar, for in 185 1 they had houses in Paris, in which after the 
coup d'etat Victor Hugo and his friends lay concealed. 

When the emperor attempted constitutional reforms, in 
1869, Grevy was again elected deputy from the Jura. He 
acted with dignity and moderation, though he voted always 



41 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

with the advanced party. Gambetta he personally disliked, 
having an antipathy to his dictatorial ways. When the 
National Assembly met at Bordeaux to decide the fate of 
France, Grevy was made its Speaker, or president ; but 
when the coitp d'etat in favor of Henri V. was meditated, 
he was got rid of beforehand, after he had presided for two 
turbulent years over an Assembly distracted and excited. 
Every one respected M. Grevy. There was very little of 
the typical Frenchman in his composition. He was of 
middle height, rather stout, with a large bald, well-shaped 
head. He was no lover of society, but was a diligent 
worker, and his favorite amusements were billiards and the 
humble game of dominoes. His wife was the good woman 
suited to such a husband ; but his daughter, his only child, 
was considered by Parisian society pretentious and a blue- 
stocking. She married, after her father's elevation to the 
presidency, M. Daniel Wilson, a Frenchman, in spite of his 
English name. M. Grevy's Eh-like toleration of the sins of 
his daughter's husband caused his overthrow. 

In Marshal MacMahon's time there were two points on 
which he as president insisted on having his own way j that is, 
anything relating to army affairs, or to the granting civilians 
the cross of the Legion of Honor. He did not object to 
the decoration of civihans, but he insisted upon knowing 
the antecedents of the gentlemen recommended for the dis- 
tinction. Well would it have been for M. Grevy had he fol- 
lowed the example of his predecessor. The marshal would 
never give the cross to a man whom he knew to be a free- 
thinker. His reply to such applications always was : "If 
he is not a Christian, what does he want with a cross? " 

It is said that in 1877, when the marshal thought of re- 
signing rather than accepting such an advanced Republican 
as M. Jules Simon as chief of his Cabinet, he sent for M. 
Gr^vy, and asked him point-blank : " Do you want to be- 
come president of the Republic? " " I am not in the least 
ambitious for that honor," replied M. Grevy. " If I were 
sure you would be elected in my place, I would resign," 
continued the marshal ; " but I do not know what would 



THREE FRENCH PRESIDENTS. 41 I 

happen if I were to go." " My strong advice to you is not 
to resign," said M. Grevy ; " only bring this crisis to an end 
by choosing your ministers out of the Repubhcan majority, 
and you will be pleased with yourself afterwards for having 
done your duty." 

" Well, you are an honest man, M. Gr^vy ; I wish there 
were more like you," said the marshal; and having shaken 
hands with M. Grevy, he dismissed him, though without pro- 
mising to follow his advice. He reflected on it that night, 
however, and adopted it the next morning. But when ad- 
vised to take Gambetta for his minister, he replied : " I do 
not expect my ministers to go to mass with me or to shoot 
with me ; but they must be men with whom I can have some 
common ground of conversation, and I cannot talk with 
ce monsieur- la r Indeed, Gambetta was often shy and 
awkward in social intercourse, seldom giving the impression 
in private life of the powers of burning eloquence with 
which he could in public move friend or foe. Nor had 
M, Grevy been by any means always in accord with the 
fiery Southerner. At Tours he objected to Gambetta's 
measures as wholly unconstitutional. " You are one of those 
men," retorted Gambetta, "who expect to make omelettes 
without breaking the eggs." " You are not making omelettes, 
but a mess," retorted M. Grevy. 

Both the marshal and his successor were sportsmen and 
gave hunting-parties, those of the marshal being as much 
in royal style as possible. M. Gr^vy preferred republican 
simplicity. When he was allowed, as Speaker of the House, 
to live in Marie Antoinette's apartments in the Chateau of 
Versailles, he might have been seen any day sauntering 
about the streets with his hands in his pockets, or smoking 
his cigar at the door of a cafe. He had a brougham, but he 
rarely used it. His coachman grumbled at having to follow 
him at a foot-pace when he took long walks into the country. 
His servants did not, like the marshal's, wear gray and scarlet 
liveries, but his household arrangements were more dignified 
and liberal than those of M. Thiers. He had a curious way 
of receiving his friends sans ceremonie. Three mornings in 



412 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

the week his old intimate associates, — artists, journahsts, 
deputies, etc., — entered the presidential palace unan- 
nounced, and went straight to an apartment fitted up for 
fencing. There, taking masks and foils, they amused them- 
selves, till presently M. Grevy would come in, make the 
tour of the room, speak a few words to each, and invite 
one or two of them to breakfast with him. 

Both M. Gr^vy and Marshal MacMahon held their Cabinet 
meetings in that salle of the Elysee which is hung round 
with the portraits of sovereigns. Opposite to M. Grevy's 
chair hung a portrait of Queen Victoria ; and it was remarked 
that he always gazed at her while his ministers discoursed 
around him. But his happiness, poor man ! was in his 
private apartments, where his daughter, her husband, M. 
Wilson, and his little grandchild made part of his house- 
hold. 

M. Gr^vy gave handsome dinners at the Elysee, and 
Madame Gr^vy and Madame Wilson gave receptions, and 
occasionally handsome balls. Everything was done " de- 
cently and in order," much like an American president's 
housekeeping, but without show or brilliancy. 

Having indulged in this gossip about the courts of the 
presidents (for much of which I am indebted to a writer in 
"Temple Bar"), we will turn to graver history. 

When M. Grevy became president, Gambetta succeeded 
to his place as president of the Chamber. He did not de- 
sire the post of prime minister. His new position made 
him the second man in France, and seemed to point him 
out as the future candidate for the presidency, 

M. Defavre became chief of the Cabinet, and M. Wad- 
dington Minister for Foreign Affairs. But Gambetta, 
whether in or out of office, was the leader of his party, and 
a sense of the responsibilities of leadership made him far 
more cautious and less fiery than he had been in former 
days. Yet even then he had said emphatically : " No 
republic can last long in France that is not based on law, 
order, and respect for property." 

In August, 1880, however, eighteen months after M. 



THREE ERENCH PRESIDENTS. 413 

Grevy's elevation to the presidency, Gambetta became 
prime minister. He flattered himself that he might do 
great things for France, for he believed that he could count 
on the support of every true Republican. He was mistaken. 
Three months after he accepted office, the Radicals and 
the Conservatives combined for his overthrow. He was 
defeated in the Chamber on a question of the sc7'ntiii de 
liste, and resigned. 

Gambetta's disappointment was very great. He had 
counted on his popularity, and had hoped to accomplish 
great things. He was a man of loose morals and of declin- 
ing health, for, unsuspected by himself, a disorder from 
which he could never have recovered, was undermining his 
strength ; this made him irritable. On the 30th of 
August, 1882, he was visiting, at a country house near 
Paris, a lady of impaired reputation ; there he was shot so 
severely that after lingering a few days he died in great 
suffering. It has never been known whether the shot 
was fired by the woman, as was generally suspected, or 
whether his own pistol, as he asserted, was accidentally 
discharged. 

He was buried at Pere la Chaise, without rehgious ser- 
vices j but his coffin was followed by vast crowds, and all 
Frenchmen (even his enemies, and they were many) felt 
that his country had lost an honest patriot and a great 
man. 

On the centennial anniversary of the opening act of the 
French Revolution, a statue of Gambetta was unveiled in 
the Place du Carrousel, the courtyard of French kings. 
No future king, if any such should be, will dare to displace 
it. Gambetta's life was a sad one, and his death was 
sadder still. With all his noble qualities, — and there are 
few things nobler in history than the manner in which he 
effaced himself to give place to his rival, — how great he 
might have been, had he learned early to apply his power 
of self-restraint to lesser things ! 

Gambetta wanted Paris to remain the city of cities, the 
centre of art, fashion, and culture ; and he took up the 



414 ^^RANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

Emperor Napoleon's policy of beautifying and improving 
it by costly public works. *' Je veux ma re'publique belle, 
bien par^e " ('' I want my republic beautiful and well 
dressed ") was a sentence which brought him into trouble 
with the Radicals, who said he had no right to say " my 
republic," as if he were looking forward to being its dic- 
tator. He voted for the return of the Communists from 
New Caledonia, and during the last two years of his life 
these returned exiles never ceased to thwart him and revile 
him. Some one had prophesied to him that this would 
be the case. *' Bah ! " he answered, " the poor wretches 
have suffered enough. I might have been transported my- 
self, had matters turned out differently in 1870." ^ Had he 
lived, it is probable that in 1886 he would have supplanted 
M. Grevy. '' Nor," says one of his friends, " can it be 
doubted that, loving the Republic as he did, and having 
served it with so much devotion and honesty, he would 
have found in his love a power of self-restraint to keep him 
from courses that might have been hurtful to his own work." 
For the establishment of the Republic was principally " his 
own work." He proclaimed its birth, standing in a window 
of the Hotel de Ville in 1870; he gave it a baptism of 
some glory in the fiery, though hopeless, resistance he 
opposed to the German invasion ; and he kept it standing 
at a time when it needed the support of a sturdy, vigilant 
champion. To the end it must be believed that he would, 
as far as in him lay, have preserved it from harm. Not 
long before his death, during a lull in his pain, which for 
a moment roused a hope of his recovery, he said to his 
doctor : " I have made many mistakes, but people must 
not imagine I am not aware of them ; I often think over my 
faults, and if things go well I shall try the patience of my 
friends less often. On se cori'ige ! " 

When Gambetta was dead, the man who stepped into 
his place was Jules Ferry. He was a lawyer, born in the 
Vosges in 1832. He had never been personally intimate 
with Gambetta, but he succeeded to his political inheritance, 

1 Cornhill Magazine, 1883. 



THREE FRENCH PRESIDENTS. 415 

became chief of his party, secured the majority that Gam- 
betta never could get in the Chamber, and did all that 
Gambetta had failed to do. 

His attention when prime minister was largely devoted 
to the development of French industry in colonies. He 
began a war in Tonquin, he annexed Tunis, and commenced 
aggressions in Madagascar. All of these enterprises have 
proved difficult, unprofitable, and wasteful of life and 
money. 

The position of France with relation to other powers has 
become very isolated. Her best friend, strange to say, is 
Russia, — the young Republic and the absolute czar ! 
Germany, Austria, and Italy form the alliance called the 
Dreibund. But their military force united is not quite 
equal to that of France and Russia combined. If Russia 
ever attacks the three powers of Central Europe on the 
East, it is not to be doubted that France will rush upon 
Alsace and Lorrame. The mob of Paris, in 1884, put 
M. Gre'vy to much annoyance and embarrassment by hiss- 
ing and hooting the young king of Spain on his way 
through the French capital because he had accepted the 
honorary colonelcy of a German regiment, and M. Grevy 
and his Foreign Minister had profoundly to apologize. The 
incident was traceable, it was said at the time, to the in- 
discretions of M. Daniel Wilson, the president's son-in-law, 
whose melancholy story remains to be told. 

Shortly before Gambetta's death, occurred that of the 
Prince Imperial in Zululand, and that of the Comte de 
Chambord in Austria. 

The son of Napoleon III. had been educated at Wool- 
wich, the W^est Point Academy of England. When the 
Zulu war broke out, all his young English companions were 
ordered to Africa, and he entreated his mother to let him 
go. He wanted to learn the art of war, he said, and per- 
haps too he wished to acquire popularity with the people 
of England, in view of a future alliance with a daughter of 
Queen Victoria. The general commanding at the seat of 
war was far from glad to see him. He knew the dangers 



41 6 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

of savage warfare, and felt the responsibility of such a 
charge. For some time he kept the prince working in an 
office, but at last permitted hnn to go on a reconnoitring 
expedition, where little danger was anticipated. There is 
no page in history so dishonorable to the valor and good 
conduct of an English gentleman as that which records 
how, when surprised by Zulus, the young prince was de- 
serted by his superior officer and his companions, and 
while trying to mount his restive horse, was slain. 

He left a will leaving his claims (such as they were) to 
the imperial throne of France to his young cousin Victor 
Napoleon, thus overlooking the father of that young prince, 
Jerome Napoleon, the famous Plon-Plon. 

The reconciliation which in 1873 took place between the 
Comte de Chambord and his distant cousins of the house 
of Orleans never resulted in cordial relations, though the 
Comte de Paris, as his cousin's heir, visited the Comte de 
Chambord at Frohsdorf. The Comtesse de Chambord de- 
spised and disliked the family of Orleans, and the Mon- 
archist party in France still remained divided into Legiti- 
mists and Orleanists, the latter protesting that they only 
desired a constitutional sovereign, and did not hold to the 
doctrine of right divine. 

The Comte de Chambord died Aug. 24, 1883. His 
malady was cancer in the stomach, complicated by other 
disorders. The Orleanist princes hastened to Frohsdorf to 
attend his funeral, but they were so disdainfully treated by 
his widow that they deemed it due to their self-respect to 
retire before the obsequies. This is how " Figaro," a leading 
Legitimist journal in Paris, speaks of the Comte de 
Chambord : — 



" He had noble qualities and great virtues. What most dis- 
tinguished him was an intense feeling of royal dignit}^, which he 
guarded most jealously by act and word. But we may be per- 
mitted to doubt whether the fifty-three years he had passed in 
exile had qualified him to understand and to sympathize with 
the great changes in public opinion in his own country, and the 
true tendencies of the present and the rising generation. In his 



THREE FRENCH PRESIDENTS. 41 y 

youth he was entirely guided by others, but after the couJ> d'etat 
of 1851 he took things into his own hands, and directed his 
course up to the last moment with a firmness which admitted of 
neither contradiction nor dispute. He sincerely wished to pro- 
mote liberty ; there was nothing in him of the despot, but he 
had lived all his life out of France, and could not comprehend 
the preferences and the habits which had grown into national 
feeling. He was kindly, genial, intelligent, witty, dignified, and 
affable. He only needed to have been brought up among his 
people to have made an admirable sovereign. Had the first 
plan of the Revolution of 1830 been carried out, and the young 
prince been made king, with Louis Philippe lieutenant-general 
till his majority, it is possible that France might have been 
spared great tribulations. For our own part," continues the 
" Figaro," "we have always looked upon monarchy as the best 
government for the peace, prosperity, and liberty of France ; but 
with the personal politics of the Comte de Chambord we could 
not agree. After all France had gone through, it was necessary 
to nationalize the king, and to royalize the nation. M. le Comte 
de Chambord utterly refused to yield anything to constitutional 
ideas and to become what he called the king of the Revolution. 
It is true that the White Flag of the Bourbons had been associ- 
ated with a long line of glories in France, but for a hundred 
years the Tricolor had been the flag under which French soldiers 
had marched to victory. It was this matter of the flag that 
prevented the success of the plan of restoration in 1873, two 
months after the Comte de Paris had so patriotically sacrificed 
some of his own most cherished feelings by his reconciliation 
(for his country's sake) with his cousin at Frohsdorf. The 
party could do nothing v/ithout its head. The Orleanist princes 
would not act without their chief, and the opportunity passed, 
perhaps never to return." 

" Henri V. never hesitated about the matter of the flag," says 
another writer. " He regarded its color as above everything 
important. The question of white or tricolor was to him a vital 
thing. He said: ' Kings have their private points of personal 
honor like mere citizens. I should feel myself to be sacrificing 
my honor, since I was born a king, if I m'ade anv concessions 
on the subject of the White Flag of my family. With respect to 
other things I may concede; but as to that, never, never/ 
The only thing for which I have ever reproached Louis XVL 
was for having for one moment suffered the boufiet rouge to be 
placed upon his head to save his royalty. Now you are pro- 
posing to me to do the same thing. No ! ' The count had 

27 



41 8 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

drawn up a constitution for France after his own ideas, but he 
would show it to no man. No human being had any power to 
influence him. But he was heard to say more than once : ' I 
will never diminish the power of the sovereign. I desire liberty 
and progress to emanate from the king. Royalty should pro- 
gress with the age, but never cease to be itself in all things.' 
He deemed the authority he claimed to be his by right divine; 
but one may be permitted to think," concludes this writer, " that 
this authority, if it came from Heaven, has been recalled there." 

Four months before his death he had a touching inter- 
view with his heir, the Comte de Paris, at Frohsdorf. The 
count little expected then that he would be prevented from 
taking the part of chief mourner at the funeral which took 
place Sept. i, 1883, at Goritz, when the king, who had 
never reigned, was laid beside Charles X., his grandfather. 

We may best conclude this account of the Comte de 
Chambord with some touching words which he addressed 
to his disappointed supporters in 1875 : — 

" Sometimes I am reproached for not having chosen to reign 
when the opportunity was offered me, and for having perhaps 
lost that opportunity forever. This is a misconception. Tell 
it abroad boldly. I am the depositary of Legitimate Monarchy. 
I will guard my birthright till my last sigh. I desire royalty as 
my heritage, as my duty, but never by chance or by intrigue. 
In other times I might have been willing (as some of my ances- 
tors have been) to recover my birthright by force of arms. 
What would have been possible and reasonable formerly, is not 
so now. After forty years of revolution, civil war, invasion, and 
coups d'etat., the monarchy I represent can only commend itself 
to Europe and the French people as one of peace, conciliation, 
and preservation. The king of France must return to France 
as a shepherd to his fold, or else remain in exile. If I must not 
return. Divine Providence will bear me witness before the 
French people that I have done my duty with honest intentions. 
In the midst of the prevailing ignominies of the present age it 
is well that the Hfe and policy of an exiled king should stand 
out white in all their loyalty." 

There was little of general interest in French politics 
during the remaining years of M. Grevy's first administra- 



THREE FRENCH PRESIDENTS. 419 

tion, which ended early in 1886. He was the first French 
president who had reached the end of his term. He was 
quietly re-elected by the joint vote of the two Chambers, 
not so much because he was popular as because there 
seemed no one more eligible for the position. He had not 
had much good fortune in his administration. M. Ferry's 
colonization schemes had cost great sums of money and 
had led to jealousies and disputes with foreign nations. 
French finances had become embarrassed. The French 
national debt in 1888 was almost twice as great as that of 
England, and the largest additions to it were made during 
M. Grevy's presidency, when enormous sums were spent on 
public works and on M. Ferry's colonial enterprises. The 
mere interest on the debt amounts annually to fifty millions 
of dollars, and every attempt at reduction is frustrated by 
the Chambers, which are unwilling to approve either new 
taxes or new loans. 

The two principal points of interest during the latter 
years of M. Grevy's first term of office concerned the per- 
secution of the Church and the persecution of the princes 
of the house of Orleans. 

The Republic began by taking down the crucifixes in all 
public places, such as court-rooms, magistrates' offices, and 
public schools ; for in France men swear by holding up a 
hand before the crucifix, instead of by our own irreverent 
and dirty custom of "kissing the book." Then the educa- 
tion of children was made compulsory ; but schools were 
closed that had been taught by priests, monks, or nuns. 
Next, sisters of charity were forbidden to nurse in the hos- 
pitals, their places being supplied by women little fitted to 
replace them. 

As to the Orleans princes, in 1886, the year of M. 
Grevy's second election, they were summarily ordered to 
quit France ; not that they had done anything that called 
for exile, but because Prince Napoleon (who called himself 
the Prince Imperial and head of the Bonaparte dynasty) 
had put forth a pamphlet concerning his pretensions to the 
imperial throne. This led to the banishment of all mem- 



420 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

bers of ex-royal families from French soil, and their erasure 
from the army list, if they were serving as French soldiers. 

This decree was particularly hard upon the Due d'Au- 
male, who was a French general, and had done good ser- 
vice under Chanzy and Gambetta in the darkest days of the 
calamities of France. 

The Comte de Paris deeply felt the outrage. He gave 
the world to understand that he had never conspired against 
the French Republic while living on his estates in France, 
but felt free to do so after this aggression. 

The Due d'Aumale avenged himself by an act of truly 
royal magnificence. He published part of his will, be- 
queathing to the French Institute, of which he was a mem- 
ber, that splendid estate and palace of Chantilly which he 
had inherited from his godfather, the old Duke of Bourbon. 
With its collections, its library, its archives, and its pictures, 
the gift is valued at from thirty-five to forty millions of 
francs. The revenue of the estate is to be spent in enrich- 
ing the collections, in encouraging scientific research, in 
pensioning aged authors, artists, and scientific discoverers. 

''It is the grandest gift," says M. Gabriel Monod, "ever 
given to a country. It is worthy of a prince who joins to 
the attractive grace of noble breeding and the finest quali- 
ties of a soldier, the talents of a man of letters, the learn- 
ing of a scholar, and the taste of an artist." 

M. Grevy — le vieux, " the old fellow," as his Parisians irre- 
verently called him — was deeply attached to his daughter, 
whose husband, M. Daniel Wilson, a presumptuous, specula- 
tive person, had made himself obnoxious to society and to 
all the political parties. This man lived at the Elys^e with 
his family, and made free use of presidential privileges. It 
is said that by using the president's right of franking letters 
for his business affairs, he saved himself in postage forty- 
thousand francs per annum. He also made use of informa- 
tion that he obtained as son-in-law of the president to fur- 
ther his own interests, and once or twice he got M. Grevy 
into trouble by the unwarrantable publication of certain 
matters in a newspaper of which he was the proprietor. 



THREE FRENCH PRESIDENTS. 42 1 

Besides this he was at the head of a great number of finan- 
cial schemes, whose business he conducted under the roof 
of the Elysee. Before he married Mademoiselle Grevy, a 
conseil de famille had deprived him of any control over his 
property till he came of age, on account of his reckless- 
ness; but he was what in America we call "a smart man," 
and M. Grevy was very much attached to him. 

In the early days of 1887 a person who considered him- 
self defrauded in a nefarious bargain he was trying to make 
with an adventuress, denounced to the police of Paris a 
Madame Limouzin, to whom he had paid money on her 
promise to secure for him the decoration of the Legion 
of Honor. He wanted it to promote the sale of some kind 
of patent article in which he was interested. To the aston- 
ishment of the police, when they raided the residence of 
Madame Limouzin, letters were found compromising two 
generals, — General Caffarel, who had been high in the 
War Department when General Boulanger was minister, and 
General d'Andlau, author of a book, much commended by 
military authorities, on the siege of Metz. 

General Caffarel was a gallant old officer, and it is said 
the scene was most piteous when, as part of his punish- 
ment, the police tore from his coat his own decoration of the 
Legion of Honor. The War Minister tried to smother the 
scandal and to save the generals, but it got into the public 
prints, with many exaggerations. General d'Andlau took to 
flight. The police arrested Madame Limouzin, her accom- 
plice, Madame Ratazzi, and several other persons. The 
public grew very much excited. It was said that state 
secrets were given over to pillage, that they were sold to 
the Germans, that the Government was at the mercy of 
thieves and jobbers. " One figure," wrote M. Monod, 
" stood out from the rest as a mark for suspicion. It was 
that of M. Daniel Wilson. He had never been popular with 
frequenters of the Elysee. He was a rich man, both on his 
own and his wife's side, and was an able man and a man of 
influence in business affairs. He had been Under-Secre- 
tary of Finance and President of the Committee of the 



422 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, 

Budget." Many thought he had the best chance of any 
man for succeeding M. Grevy as president of France. He 
was, however, one of those unquiet spirits who may be found 
frequently among speculators and financiers. He had no 
scruple about using his position to promote his own busi- 
ness interests and the interests of the schemes in which he 
was engaged, nor did he hesitate to give useful information 
to leaders who favored his own views in the Chambers and 
were in opposition to the ministers he disliked. Thus the 
son-in-law of the president intrigued against the president's 
ministers, and Jules Ferry, leader of the Republican law 
and order party in the Chamber, and his followers, could 
not forgive him for having thus betrayed them. Wilson be- 
longed to the advanced section of the RepubHcan party, the 
Reds ; but he was not so popular with them that they were 
unwilling to attack him, provided they could thereby get 
rid of M. Grevy, and put a more advanced Republican in 
his place. 

No positive accusation, however, in the matter of Ma- 
dame Limouzin could have been brought against M. Wilson, 
had it not been discovered by that lady's counsel that two 
of the letters seized and held as evidence — letters from 
M. Wilson to Madame Limouzin — were written on paper 
manufactured after their date, — an incident not unfamiliar 
to readers of old-fashioned English novels. The real letters, 
therefore, had undoubtedly been abstracted, and replaced 
by others of a less compromising kind. 

The Ministry, which up to the time of this discovery had 
endeavored to keep the name of the president's son-in-law 
from being connected with the sale of decorations of the 
Legion of Honor, was obliged to authorize his prosecution ; 
and the Prefect of Police, who was suspected of having 
given back to M. Wilson his own letters, was forced to 
resign.^ 

When the trial of M. Wilson and the prefect came on, 
they were acquitted, not by a verdict of Not Guilty, but be- 
cause the French Code contained no clause that constituted 
1 There is a similar incident in Balzac's "Cousin Pons." 



THREE FRENCH PRESIDENTS. 423 

it an offence for a man to obtain possesssion of his own let- 
ters. The judge, when he acquitted the accused, stated 
that there was no doubt whatever of the substitution. Then 
from all sides mformation began to pour in from people 
who had paid money to M. Wilson to procure them minis- 
terial or presidential favors, and such disclosures could not 
but reflect on M. Grevy. Instantly his enemies seized their 
opportunity. For once, Monarchists and Anarchists united 
and endeavored to force the president to resign ; but the 
old man stood by his son-in-law in his hour of adversity, 
and would not go. 

Then the coalition changed its base, and attacked M. 
Rouvier, the prime minister. He was outvoted in the 
Chamber on some insignificant question; and having no 
parliamentary majority, he was forced to resign. By no ef- 
forts could M. Grevy get any one to take his place. Once 
he thought he had persuaded M. Clemenceau, a Radical 
leader, to form a ministry ; but his party gave him to under- 
stand that they would not support him. 

The president, then seventy-five years of age, was in a 
position in which any one but a partisan political opponent 
must have been moved to pity him. He had been so long 
and so loudly extolled for his extreme respectability and his 
austere virtues that he had never dreamed that public opin- 
ion on such a point as this could turn against him. He 
could not endure the idea of being dismissed with con- 
tempt less than two years after his re-election to the presi- 
dency by the unanimous vote of all Republicans. He was 
willing to go, but he did not choose to be forced to go by 
the brutal summons of an infuriated public. Yet France, 
pending his decision, was without a government. Some- 
thing had to be done. He employed every device to gain 
time. He had interviews with men of various parties. He 
grew more and more care-worn and aged. His troubles 
showed themselves in his carriage and his face. " By turns 
he was insinuating, eloquent, lively, pathetic. He showed 
a suppleness and a tenacity of purpose that amazed those 
brought into contact with him. If he could but gain time. 



424 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

he hoped that the RepubHcans would disagree about his 
successor, and decide to rally round him ; but at last he 
was forced to send in his resignation. He did so Dec. i, 
1887, in a message which, by the confusion of its language, 
betrayed the anguish of his mind." A few days after giv- 
ing up his quarters at the Elysee as president of the Repub- 
lic, he was stricken down by paralysis. 

When the resignation of M, Grevy had been accepted, 
came the question, Who should succeed hun? If the Re- 
publican party split and failed to choose a president, the 
Monarchists might seize their opportunity. The candidate 
most acceptable to the Moderate Republicans was M.Jules 
Ferry, but he was unpopular with the Radicals. He had 
belonged to the Committee of Defence and the Govern- 
ment of Versailles which had put down the Commune. 
His colonial policy had not been a success, and he was 
known to have no toleration for the Reds. Mobs collected 
in the streets shouting '' A bas Ferry ! " He was accused 
of being the candidate of the Comte de Paris, of the pope, 
of Bismarck. He was '' Ferry the traitor 1 Ferry the 
Prussian ! Ferry the clerical ! Ferry the Orleanist ! " The 
Radicals, with the ex-Communist, General Eudes, at their 
head, swore to take up arms if Ferry were elected by the 
Chambers. The Moderate Republicans were not strong 
enough, without help, to carry his election. It was a case 
when a '' dark horse " was wanted, an obscure man, against 
whom nothing was known. 

The Radicals proposed two candidates, — M. de Freycinet, 
who, though not a Radical, was thought weak enough to be 
ruled by them, and M. Floquet. But the Moderates would 
not lend their aid to elect either of these men. At last 
both parties united on M. Sadi-Carnot. 

There were two reasons for his election : the first lay in 
his name ; he was the grandson of Lazare Carnot, elected 
deputy in 1792 to the National Convention from Arras, at 
the same time as his friend Robespierre. This man and 
Robespierre had belonged to the same Literary Society in 
Arras, — a club into which no one could be admitted without 




PRESIDENT SADT-CARNOT. 



THREE FRENCH PRESIDENTS. 425 

writing a love-song.^ Lazare Carnot was the good man of 
the Revolution. Not a stain rests upon his character. He 
organized the glorious armies of the Republic, and was 
afterwards one of the members of the Directory. His son, 
Hippolyte Carnot, as the oldest member in the Senate in 
1887, had the duty of announcing to his own son, Sadi- 
Carnot, his election to the highest office in the gift of his 
countrymen. M. Hippolyte Carnot was a man of high 
character, who during a long life had filled many public 
offices. He was also a man of letters, and wrote a Life of 
Barere, — a book that will be best remembered by having 
come under the lash of Macaulay. Every cut inflicted 
upon Barere tells, and we delight in its severity. 

The second reason for Sadi-Carnot's election was the 
popularity he acquired from its being supposed that when 
he was at the head of the Committee of Finance he had 
resisted some illegal demands made on the Treasury by 
M. Wilson. The demands were resisted, it is true, but not 
more by M. Carnot than by his colleagues. '' He was made 
president of the French Republic," some one said, " for 
an act of integrity he had never committed, and for giving 
himself the trouble to be born, like any heir of royalty." 

He is a good man, who has made no enemies, either in 
public or private fife. It may also be added that he seems 
to have attracted few personal friends. The Republic has 
grown in strength, and factious opposition has decreased 
during his administration. His republicanism is not ad- 
vanced or rabid. He is rigidly honest. He has a charm- 
ing wife, who, though slightly deaf, enjoys society and gives 
brilliant receptions. 

Poor M. Grevy passed away into sorrow and obscurity. 
He took up his residence on his estate in the Department 
of the Jura, where, in September, 1891, he died. M. Wil- 
son appears first to have made all his own relations rich, 
and then by speculations to have ruined them. 

In contemplating the disastrous end of M. Grevy we 

1 See Robespierre's in the " Editor's Drawer," Harper's Magazine, 
1.889. 



426 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

must remember that the scandal which caused his fall, 
after so many years of honorable service for his country, 
amounts, so far as he was concerned, to very little. The 
only fault of which he can be accused was that of too great 
toleration of the speculative propensities of his son-in-law. 
It was proved, indeed, that there were agencies in the hands 
of disreputable persons in Paris for the purchase and sale 
of influence and honors, but there was little or no evidence 
that these agencies had had any influence with the public 
departments. The existence of such agencies under the 
Empire would have excited httle comment. That the trials 
of Madame Limouzin, General Caffarel, and M. Wilson so 
excited the public and produced such consequences, may 
be proof, perhaps, of a keener sense of morality in the 
Parisian people. 

Some one said of M. Grevy that he was a Radical in 
speech and a Moderate in action, so that he pleased both 
parties. The strongest accusation against him was his per- 
sonal love of economy, and his entire indifference to show, 
literature, or art. It was also considered a fault in him as a 
French president that he showed little inchnation to travel. 
Socially, the polite world accused him of wearing old hats 
and no gloves. On cold days he put his hands in his 
pockets, which in the eyes of some was worse than put- 
ting them for his own purposes into the pockets of other 
people. 




GENERAL B ULANGER 



CHAPTER XX. 

GENERAL BOULANGER. 

UP to 1886 the name of General Boulanger commands 
no place upon the page of history. After that year 
it was scattered broadcast. For four years it was as familiar 
in the civilized world as that of Bismarck. 

A new word was coined in 1886 to meet a want which 
the general's importance had created. That word was 
boulangisme, though it would be hard to give it a definition 
in the dictionary. We can only say that it meant whatever 
General Boulanger might be pleased to attempt. 

George Ernest Jean Marie Boulanger was born in the 
town of Rennes, in Brittany, in 1837.^ His father had been 
a lawyer, and was head of an insurance company.^ He 
spent the latter days of his life at Ville-d'Avray, near Paris ; 
and as he did not die till 1884, he lived to see his son a 
highly considered French officer, though he had not then 
given promise of being a popular hero and a world-famous 
man. ' General Boulanger's mother was named Griffith ; she 
was a lady belonging apparently to the upper middle class 
in Wales. She had a great admiration for George Washing- 
ton, and the future French hero received one of his names 
from the American " father of his country." In his boy- 
hood Boulanger was always called George ; but when he 
came of age he preferred to call himself Ernest, which is 
the baptismal name by which he is generally known. " 

In 1 85 1 his parents took him to England to the Great 
Exhibition. He afterwards passed some months with his 
maternal relatives at Brighton, and was sent to school there ; 

i Turner, Life of Boulanger. 



428 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

but he had such fierce quarrels with the Enghsh boys in 
defence of his nationahty that the experiment of an Enghsh 
education did not answer. At the age of seventeen he was 
admitted to the French miUtary school at Saint-Cyr, and two 
years later was in Algeria, as a second lieutenant in a regi- 
ment of Turcos. His experiences in Africa were of the 
kind usual in savage warfare ; but he became a favorite with 
his men, whom he cared for throughout his career with 
much of that fatherly interest which distinguished the 
Russian hero, General Skobeleff. 

When the war with Italy broke out, in 1859, Boulanger 
and his Turcos took part in it. He was severely wounded 
in his first engagement, and lay long in the hospital, at- 
tended by his mother. He received, however, three deco- 
rations for his conduct in this campaign, in which he was 
thrice wounded. On the last occasion, as he lay in hospital, 
he received a visit of sympathy from the Empress Eugenie, 
then in the very zenith of her beauty and prosperity. 

Boulanger's next service was in Tonquin, where on one 
occasion he fought side by side with the Spaniards, and 
received a fourth decoration, that of Isabella the Catholic. 

He was next assigned to home duty at Saint-Cyr ; and when 
the terrible war of 1870 broke out, and all the cadets were 
drafted into the army as officers, he was made major of a 
regiment, which was at Mezieres, on the Belgian frontier, 
when MacMahon and the emperor surrendered at Sedan. 
Boulanger and his command escaped with Vinoy's troops 
from the disaster, and got back to Paris, where he kept his 
men in better order during the siege than any other officer. 
They took part in the sortie made to join Chanzy's Army 
of the Loire, in November, 1870, and in a skirmish with 
the Prussians he was again badly wounded. When the 
Prussian army entered Paris on March 5, 1871, Boulanger 
and the regiment under his command had the unpleasant 
duty of guarding the streets along their line of march to 
insure them a safe passage. 

In 1874, when thirty-seven years of age, Boulanger was 
a colonel, with the breast of his uniform covered with deco- 



GENERAL BOULANGER. 429 

rations ; but he had taken no part whatever in poHtics, and 
was not known to have any political views, save that he 
called himself a fervent Republican, and personally resented 
any aristocratic assumptions on the part of inferior officers. 

^ In 1 88 1 he was sent by the French Government to the 
United States, in company with the descendants of La- 
fayette and Rochambeau, to attend the Yorktown celebra- 
tion. Amongst all the French delegation Boulanger was 
distinguished by his handsome person and agreeable man- 
ners, while his knowledge of English made him everywhere 
popular. He was already married to his cousin, Made- 
moiselle Renouard, and had two little daughters, Helene 
and Marcelle. 

~^ When the Minister of War gave Boulanger his appoint- 
ment on the mission to Yorktown, he cautioned him that 
he must not shock the quiet tastes of American republicans 
by wearing too brilliant uniforms. Fortunately Colonel 
Boulanger did not accept the hint, and on all public occa- 
sions during his visit to this country he attracted the ad- 
miration of reporters and spectators as the handsomest 
man in the French group, wearing the most showy uniform, 
with the greatest number of glittering decorations. He was 
tall, with handsome auburn beard and hair, and very regular 
features. Even in caricatures the artist has been obliged to 
represent him as very handsome. ^ 

After his return to France, Boulanger was sent to Tunis, — 
a State recently annexed by the French, who were jealous 
of the power acquired by Great Britain on the southern 
shores of the Mediterranean by her protectorate in Egypt. 
Here Boulanger's desire to conduct things in a military way 
led to disputes with the civil authorities, and he returned to 
France in 1885, where M. de Freycinet, then head of a new 
Cabinet, made him Minister of War. He at once set to 
work to reform the army. He told his countrymen that 
if they ever hoped to take revenge upon the Germans (or 
rather revanche ; for the words do not mean precisely the 
same thing), they must have their army in a much better 
state of preparation than it was in 1870. Instantly a cry 



430 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

arose in France that General Boulanger was the man who 
sought a war with Germany, and who would lead French 
armies to the reconquest of Alsace and Lorraine. The 
French peasantry have never been able to accept the loss 
of Alsace and Lorraine as an accomplished fact; they 
look on the retention of those provinces by the Germans 
as a temporary arrangement until France can at the right 
moment wrest them out of her powerful rival's hand. 

Boulanger's popularity rose to fever-heat. The Boulan- 
ger March, with its song, " En revenant de la revue," was 
played and sung in all the cafes cha7itants of Paris. The 
general rode a black horse as handsome as himself. Some 
one has said, "As a political factor, Boulanger was born 
of a horse and a song." 

In 1886 he advocated the exile of the Orleans princes 
and the erasure of the Due d'Aumale's name from the list 
of French generals. For this he was reproached with in- 
gratitude to the duke, who had once been his commanding 
officer. His own letter of thanks for kindness, favors, and 
patronage was produced, and Boulanger could only defend 
himself by pronouncing it a forgery. 

He made many changes in army regulations, which in- 
creased his popularity with the army. One was an order 
to the men to wear their beards ; and as in the French army 
soldiers had always been obliged to shave except when on 
active service, this was interpreted, in the excited state of 
public feeling, into an intimation of the probability of a 
speedy declaration of war. As War Minister, the general 
also extended the time when soldiers on leave might stay 
out at night, and relieved them from much of the heavy 
weight that on the march they had had to carry. He broke 
up certain semi-aristocratic clubs in the regiments which 
controlled army opinion, and gave more weight to the sen- 
timents of the sub-officers. 

But before long the Ministry, in which he represented the 
War Department, came to an end, — as, indeed, appears 
to have been the fate of all the ministries under the adminis- 
tration of M. Gr^vy. No policy, no reforms, could be 



GENERAL BOULANGER. 431 

carried out under such frequent changes. The popular cry 
was that the popular favorite must retain his portfolio as 
War Minister in the new Cabinet ; and this occasioned 
considerable difficulty. The general had begun to be feared 
as a possible dictator. His popularity was immense ; but 
what his place might be in politics no one could precisely 
tell. That he was the idol of the nation was certain ; but 
was he a Radical of the Belleville type, or a forthcoming 
Napoleon Bonaparte, — an Imperialist on his own account, 
or a Jacobin ? ( 

The fall of the second Ministry in which he served put 
him out of office, and the War Minister who succeeded him 
proceeded to bid for popularity by fresh reforms, which the 
Radical Deputies thought might be acceptable to the people. 
Those who deal with the French peasant should never lose 
sight of the fact that the peace and prosperity of himself 
and of his household stand foremost in his eyes. The 
Frenchman, as we depict him in imagination or in fiction, 
is as far as possible from the French peasant. If ideas 
contrary to his selfish interests ever make their way into his 
mind, they are due to the leaven of old French soldiers 
scattered through the villages. So when the new Minister 
of War proposed, and the Chamber of Deputies passed, an 
ordinance that made it illegal to buy a substitute, and re- 
quired every Frenchman, from eighteen to twenty-one years 
of age, to serve in the army, the peasant found small conso- 
lation for the loss of his sons' services in the thought that 
the son of a duke must serve as well as the son of a laborer. 
Boulanger had introduced no such measure. " Vive le Ge- 
neral Boulanger ! " 

Another measure, passed about the same time, brought 
great trouble into famiUes. It was a law making education 
compulsory, and was loaded with vexatious and arbitrary 
regulations. Every child privately educated had to pass, 
semi-annually, a strict examination before certain village 
authorities. This gave rise in famihes to all sorts of tribu- 
lations. France is not exactly a land of liberty; personal 
liberty is sacrificed to efforts to enforce equality. 



432 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

I 

General Boulanger after his loss of office was given the 
command of the Thirteenth Army Corps, and was sent into 
a sort of exile at its headquarters at Clermont-Ferrand. 
At the railroad-station in Paris a great crowd awaited him 
on the day of his departure. It broke down the barriers, 
and delayed in-coming and out-going trains, as it pressed 
around him. At first the general seemed pleased by 
this evidence of his popularity ; then he began to feel the 
truth of what a friend whispered to him, '' These twenty 
thousand men will make you forty thousand enemies," and 
he grew embarrassed and annoyed by the demonstration. 
Finally he mounted a locomotive, and made a brief speech 
to the people ; then the train steamed out of the station. 

The exile of the general to Clermont-Ferrand, and the 
harsh measures taken against him by the man who succeeded 
him in the War Office, caused his popularity with the popu- 
lace daily to increase. He was felt to be a power in the 
State, and this, when he perceived it, awakened his ambition./ 

In November, 1887, when all parties in France were 
anticipating the resignation of M. Grevy after the exposure 
of his son-in-law, the majority of Frenchmen, outside the 
Chamber of Deputies, dreaded the election of M. Jules Ferry 
to his place, and prophesied that it would be the signal for 
another civil war. This was the opinion held (rightly or 
wrongly) by M. Grevy himself, by General Boulanger, and 
by the Comte de Paris. \ By the last day of November, when 
it seemed impossible for M. Grevy to retain office, because 
no leader of influence in the Chamber would help him to 
form a ministry, Boulanger, who had come up to Paris, met 
a small party of his friends, including M. Clemenceau, leader 
of the Radical party, and Rochefort, the leader of the Radi- 
cal press, at dinner at the house of M. and Madame 
Laguerre.i M. Laguerre was a deputy who supported 
Boulanger in the Chamber against his enemies. Two 
gentlemen present had that afternoon seen M. Grevy, who 
had implored them to find some leader who would form a 

1 See " Les Coulisses du Boulangisme," published in "■ Figaro," 
and attributed to M. Meimieux. 



GENERAL BOULANGER. 



433 



ministry ; already had M. Clemenceau been thought of, but 
he was undecided. It was evident that if he would secure 
the out-of-doors support of Boulanger's popularity, his 
ministry must include Boulanger. It seemed equally certain 
that if it did so, it would be beset by enemies in the Chamber. 
In the midst of a heated discussion on the subject, General 
Boulanger about midnight was mysteriously called away. 

The person who summoned him was the editor of the 
" Cocarde," the Boulangist newspaper, who had been sounded 
that afternoon by an agent of the Comte de Paris to know 
if it were probable that Boulanger would join the Monarch- 
ists to defeat the chances of Jules Ferry. The party of the 
Comte de Paris had recently gathered strength both by the 
death of the Comte de Chambord and that of the Prince 
Imperial. But it was also divided. There were those who 
called themselves of the old school, who held to the high- 
minded traditions which had caused M. Thiers to say to one 
of them in 1871, "You are of all parties the most honest, — 
I do not say the most intelligent, but the most honest ; " and 
the men of the new school, — men of the close of the cen- 
tury, as they called themselves, — who thought all means 
good that led to a good end, and were for energetic action. 
To this party belonged the Comtesse de Paris, daughter of 
the Due de Montpensier and of the Infanta Luisa of Spain. 
She had been known to say emphatically : " I don't like 
people who are always going to do something to-morrow, 
— like the Comte de Chambord ; such princes die in 
exile." 

The Due d'Aumale, on the contrary, despised crooked 
ways ; and the hope of an intrigue or alliance with General 
Boulanger was not named to him by his nephew, especially 
as there was good reason to think he would never have con- 
sented to make a useful instrument of the man who had so 
ill-treated him when Minister of War. 

The idea, however, had suddenly presented itself to the 
agents of the Comte de Paris (if it had not been previously 
suggested to him) that General Boulanger might be won over 
to play the part of General Monk, or failing this, that he 

28 



434 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

might not be unwilling to ally himself with the Monarchists 
to defeat the election of M. Ferry. 

It was to hold an interview with the gentleman who 
represented the cause of the Comte de Paris that Boulanger 
was summoned from the conference going on at M. 
Laguerre's. 

The Royalist agent proposed that M. Grevy should be 
retained as president, and promised that his party in the 
Chamber would support any ministry which should include 
General Boulanger, and of which he should be virtually the 
head. In return, Boulanger was to give his support to an 
appeal to the people, to see what form of government 
France would prefer. It was added that if Boulanger were 
Minister of War, he could do what he pleased with the 
army ; and thus France, well managed, might change from a 
republic to a monarchy by the will of the people and 
without civil war. 

The general hstened quietly to these suggestions. " There 
is nothing you could ask that would be too much to reward 
the services you would render to our country," said the 
agent of the Royalists ; " and remember that the highest 
fortunes under a Republic are the most unstable. Give us 
your word to do what we ask, and then at least M. Ferry 
will never be president." "I give you my word," said 
Boulanger. But the other then suggested that so impor- 
tant an arrangement must be ratified by some person 
higher in the confidence of the Comte de Paris than him- 
self; and he went in haste for the Baron de Makau. 
That gentleman showed General Boulanger a letter from 
the Comte de Paris, giving him full powers as his represen- 
tative. The general was to support the proposal for a 
popular vote for or against the restoration of monarchy, 
and to use his influence with the people in its favor. If 
monarchy were restored, he was to be made head of the 
army. After a long conversation the general departed, 
promising to sound the chiefs of the Radicals, and ascertain 
which of them would be most available to carry out the 
plan. 



GENERAL BOULANGER. 



435 



But to his friend the editor of the " Cocarde," who 
seemed alarmed at the extent of his promises, he said, as 
soon as they were alone together, " I would do any- 
thing to avoid civil war and the election of Ferry ; but 
what fools these people must be to put themselves in my 
power ! " 

He spoke no more till they returned to the house where 
they had left the dinner-party. The discussion was going 
on as before, only M. Clemenceau had made up his mind 
that he would not undertake to form a ministry, and M. 
Andrieux had been summoned from his bed to know if he 
would do so. He expressed his willingness to undertake 
the task, but said frankly that he could not oifer the War 
Office to General Boulanger. " Anything else, my dear 
general, you shall have," he said, " and in a few months 
probably you may have that also ; but if you formed part 
of the Cabinet at first, I could not conciliate the Chamber. 
You shall be military governor of Paris, — the noblest mili- 
tary post in the world." 

But this offer was incompatible with the secret engage- 
ments that the general had entered into not an hour before. 
The conference, therefore, broke up at five in the morning 
without a decision having been reached. 

The next morning the two gentlemen who had been 
charged by M. Grevy to procure him a prime minister, and 
if possible a cabinet, reported the failure of their mission. 
" Then all is over for me," said M. Grevy ; " I shall at once 
send in my resignation." 

The resignation was accepted, and greatly to the surprise 
of the general public, — for already the streets were full of 
excited citizens, — M. Sadi-Carnot was elected president, 
almost without discussion, and without disorder. His elec- 
tion put an end to the secret arrangement between Bou- 
langer and the Royahsts, and appeared likely to give France 
a more settled government than it had enjoyed since the 
Republic came into existence. The Exposition of 1889, 
too, was at hand, and Paris was very anxious that no poHti- 
cal convulsions should frighten away strangers. 



/ 



436 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

The general was deeply hurt by his unpopularity in the 
Chamber, and by the way in which his former friends had 
thrown him over ; but he still had the mob, the army, and 
the peasantry for his partisans, nor was he without the 
sympathy of the Bonapartists. 

It was not long before he got into trouble with the War 
Department for coming to Paris without leave. It had not 
been usual, for a general of division to ask leave of the 
Minister of War for a brief absence, nor could General 
Boulanger forget that he himself had been War Minister 
not many months before. 

The general complained bitterly of the way he had been 
followed up by the police, as if he had been a criminal. 
" From the time I left the Ministry of War," he said,^ " I 
have been spied upon and shadowed like a thief. Even 
my orderly has been bribed to report facts and falsehoods 
concerning me. My letters have been opened, and copies 
of my telegrams lie on every minister's table." He 
was deprived of his command, and retired from active 
service. 

This measure, so far from rendering him innocuous to the 
Opportunist party, brought him into Parliament ^ (as the 
French Chambers are now called) and increased his popu- 
larity. He had been already elected deputy both from the 
Department of the Aisne and the Department of the 
Dordogne, — the latter without his proposing himself as a 
candidate, although he was ineligible, and could not take 
his seat, since at the time of his election he was an officer 
of the Government, holding a command. Having now re- 
tired into private hfe, he stood for the Department of Le 
Nord, where he was received with enthusiasm and elected 
by an immense majority. From all quarters came tele- 
graphic messages to him from candidates for parliamentary 
honors, offering to resign their seats in favor of the popular 
hero. Even Corsica was anxious to have him for her 

1 To a reporter for '* Figaro." 

2 Parliament before this time meant in French history the Provin- 
cial Courts, that had chiefly legal functions. 



GENERAL BOULANGER. 437 

deputy. But it was not only his own election which con- 
cerned General Boulanger ; he wished to secure the elec- 
tion of his followers. For that purpose election funds were 
needed, and the alliance with the Royalists was renewed. 
Whenever a Royalist candidate had a certainty of election, 
no Boulangist candidate was to contend against him. In 
other cases the agents of the Comte de Paris were openly 
to encourage their followers to vote for the nominee of the 
ally who was to assist the Monarchists to oppose the Gov- 
ernment. There would have been great difficulty in raising 
the money needed for this electoral campaign, had it not 
been for a lady of high rank, the Duchesse d'Uzes, of un- 
spotted reputation, and of great enthusiasm for the cause 
of royalty, who poured her whole fortune (over three mil- 
lion francs) into the joint treasury. The alliance between 
Boulanger and the Royalists was a profound secret. Very 
few Boulangists suspected that their election expenses were 
being paid by funds drawn from the purses of the supporters 
of monarchy. 

^For more than a year the popularity of " Le brav' Gene- 
ral " kept the various ministries that succeeded each other in 
Paris and their officials all over France, in perpetual anx- 
iety. Boulanger made journeys almost like royal progresses 
into the Departments. Everywhere crowds cheered him, 
reporters followed him, his name was in everybody's 
mouth, his doings filled columns of the newspapers in many 
languages, and his flower, the carnation, was embroidered 
on tablecloths and worn in button -holes. All newspapers 
and reviews seem to have agreed that no man had been so 
popular in France since the days of the Great Emperor. 
He liked the position thrust upon him, and accepted grace- 
fully and graciously the adoration he received, — an adora- 
tion bom partly of infectious curiosity, partly from a love 
of what is phenomenal, partly from the attraction of the un- 
expected, and above all from the national need of some 
object of idolatry. France had been long destitute of any 
one to whom she might pay personal devotion. Every 
peasant's cottage throughout France was soon decorated 



438 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

with his chromo. He has even been seen on his black 
horse adorning the bamboo hut of a king in Central Af- 
rica. Pamphlets, handbills, and brief biographies were 
scattered by his friends throughout the Provinces. His 
very name, Boulanger — Baker — helped his popularity. A 
corn-law passed in France was obnoxious to the country, 
as tending to make bread more dear ; " Boulanger is to 
bring us cheap bread ! Long live our Boulanger ! " became 
the popular cry. 

But all this enthusiasm seems to have been founded only 
on expectation. General Boulanger had done nothing that 
might reasonably have attracted national gratitude and 
adoration. Yet there was a strong feeling throughout 
France that Boulanger would save the country from what 
was called the Parliamentary regime. France had become 
weary of the squabbles of the seven parties in the Cham- 
ber, of the rapid changes of ministry, of the perpetual 
coalitions, lasting just long enough to overthrow some chief 
unpopular with two factions strong enough by combination 
to get rid of him. The Chamber, it was said, though un- 
ruly and disorganized, had usurped all the functions of 
government, and a republic without an executive officer 
who can maintain himself at its head, has never been 
known to stand. In France fashion is everything, and in 
France, in 1888, it was the fashion to speak ill of parlia- 
mentary government. 

"Why am I a Boulangist?" cried a young and ardent 
writer of the party.^ " Why are my friends Boulangists ? 
Because the general is the only man in France capable of 
carrying out the expulsion of mere talkers from the Cham- 
ber of Deputies, — men who deafen the public ear, and are 
good for nothing. Gentlemen, a few hundreds of you, ever 
since 1870, have carried on the government. All of you 
are lawyers or literary men, none of you are statesmen." 

At the height of the popularity of the general his career 
was very near being cut short by a political duel. In 
France, as we have seen in the history of the Duchesse de 

1 Le Figaro. 



GENERAL BOULANGER. 439 

Berri, it is not an unheard-of thing to get rid of a political 
adversary by a challenge. After Boulanger had insulted 
the Due d'Aumale while he was Minister of War, a chal- 
lenge passed between himself and an Orleanist, M. le Baron 
de Lareinty. Boulanger stood to receive the fire of his ad- 
versary, but did not fire in return. He was subsequently 
anxious to fight Jules Ferry ; but Jules Ferry declined any 
meeting of the kind. After he entered the Chamber, his 
great enemy, Floquet, who was then in the Cabinet, called 
him in the course of debate " A Saint-Arnaud of the cafes 
cha7itants I " Boulanger challenged him for this, and the 
duel took place with swords. Floquet was slightly wounded, 
but the general's foot shpped, and he received his adver- 
sary's sword-point in his throat. It was almost a miracle 
that it did not sever the jugular vein. For some time " Le 
brav' General's" life was despaired of; but when he was 
pronounced out of danger, Paris amused itself with the 
thought that the most prominent soldier in the French 
army had nearly met his death at the hands of an elderly 
lawyer. 

Since the funds furnished to Boulanger for the election 
expenses of his candidates, and even for his own per- 
sonal expenses, came from the Royalist party, he was more 
bound to it than ever ; but he pretended to be guided by 
a body that called itself the National Republican Com- 
mittee, which he assured his friends, the Monarchists, he 
used only as a screen. When Madame d'Uzes threw her 
last milhon into the gulf, it seemed expedient to the Roy- 
alists to exact more definite pledges from Boulanger than 
his word as a soldier. " If the present Government of 
France is overthrown," they said, "and an appeal made 
to the people, who will fill the interregnum ? Will General 
Boulanger, if all power is intrusted to him, consent to give 
it up, if the nation votes for monarchy? And with all the 
machinery of government in his hands, is it certain that 
z. plebiscite would be the free vote of the people?" 

A general election was to take place in the summer of 
1889, at the height of the Universal Exposition. Hitherto 



440 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

the various elections in which Boulanger had contended 
had been for vacant seats in the old Assembly. He was 
anxious to test his popularity in Paris by standing for the 
workman's quarter of Belleville ; and in spite of his being 
opposed by the Radicals in the Chamber, as well as by the 
Government, he was elected by a large majority. • 

The Government then changed its method of attack. It 
brought in a bill changing the selection of parliamentary 
candidates from the sc7'utin de liste to the scrutin d'arron- 
dissement. Boulanger therefore would be eligible for election 
only in the district in which he was domiciled. 
/Besides the National Republican Committee (which the 
general called his screen) , there was formed all over France 
a Boulangist society called the League of Patriots. This 
league was now attacked by the Government as a conspi- 
racy. A High Court of Justice was formed by the Senate, 
before which its leaders were summoned to appear. Bou- 
langer became seriously alarmed. He did not see how 
he could act if shut up in prison. His apprehensions 
were carefully augmented by the heads of the police, who 
had placed one of their agents about his person.^ This 
man showed him a pretended order for his arrest on 
April I, 1889. The question of his retirement into Bel- 
gium if his liberty were threatened had been already de- 
bated by himself and his friends. Nearly all of them were 
against it. " Let not the people think our general could 
run away," said some. But others answered, " They will 
say it is a smart trick ; that the general has cheated the 
Government." 

After seeing the false document which was shown him, 
with great pretence of secrecy, by the police agent, the 
general hesitated no longer. On the evening of April i, 
accompanied by Madame de Bonnemains, a lady to whom 
he was paying devoted attention, pending a divorce from 
his wife, he went to Brussels, followed by his friend Count 
Dillon, the go-between in financial matters between the 
Royalists and himself. The Cabinet of M. Carnot had 

1 Les Coulisses du Boulangisme. 



GENERAL BOULANGER. 441 

learned the value of the saymg, " If your enemy wishes to 
take flight, build him a bridge of gold." 

The departure of the general threw consternation into 
the ranks of his followers. " It cannot be ! " they cried. 
Then they consoled themselves with the reflection that he 
must soon return, as he had done once before under some- 
what similar circumstances. 

But he did not return. The Government had triumphed. 
Boulanger's power was broken ; Hke a wave, it had toppled 
over when its crest was highest. The High Court of Jus- 
tice condemned Deroulede the poet, Rochefort, and Dillon, 
to confinement for life in a French fortress. The sentence, 
however, was simply one of outlawry, for they were all with 
Boulanger. 

The exiles did not stay long in Brussels. The Gov- 
ernment of Belgium objected to their remaining so near 
the frontier of France, — for in Brussels a telephone con- 
nected them with Paris, — and they went over to London. 
There, at the general's request, he had an interview with 
the Comte de Paris. But their conversation was limited to 
useless compliments and military affairs. Boulanger's power 
as a poHtical leader was at an end ; the friends of the 
prince would advance him no more funds, and in the elec- 
tions, which took place very quietly in France during the 
summer, he and his friends suffered total defeat. / 

The Government of France — strengthened not only by 
the success of the Exposition, by its great triumph at the 
elections, and by the discomfiture of its enemies, but also by 
the conviction forced upon parliamentary leaders that the 
country was weary of mere talk and discord, and demanded 
harmony and action — now became the strongest Govern- 
ment that France had enjoyed for a long time. The Re- 
public had passed the point of danger, the eighteenth year, 
which had been the limit of every dynasty or form of gov- 
ernment in France for over a century. It rallied to itself 
men from the ranks of all its former enemies, but its 
greatest victory was over the Monarchists. The wreck 
of their cause by the alliance with a military adventurer was 



442 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

a blunder in the eyes of one section of the Royalists; in 
the eyes of another, it was a dishonor that amounted almost 
to a crime. 

Boulanger had rallied to himself the clerical party in 
France by the promise of a republic strong enough to pro- 
tect the weak, — "a repubUc that would concern itself with 
the interests of the people, and be solicitous to preserve 
individual liberty in all its forms, especially liberty of con- 
science, that liberty the most to be valued of all." ^ Such 
a republic it seems possible the Third Republic may now 
become, especially since it is on all hands conceded that 
there is a reaction in France in favor of religious liberty, 
for those who are religious as well as for those who are 
" philosophers." 

President Carnot has been an eminently respectable 
president. He has committed no blunders, and if he has 
awakened little enthusiasm, he has called forth no animos- 
ities. The worst that can be said of him is embodied in 
caricatures, where he always appears ready to serve some 
useful purpose, as a jointed wooden figure that can be put 
to many a use. 

The French army is now stronger and better disciplined, 
and more full of determination to conquer, than any 
French army has ever been before. But no ruler of France 
can be anxious to precipitate a war with Germany; and 
judging from the present state of feeling among the French, 
there appear to be no serious political breakers ahead. 
Of course in France the unexpected is always to be ex- 
pected, and what a day may bring forth, nobody knows. 

Sir Charles Dilke tells us that in 1887, when a friend of 
his was going to France, he asked him to ascertain for him 
if General Boulanger were a soldier, a mountebank, or an 
ass ; and the answer brought back to him was, '* He is 
a little of them all." The general, after his interview in 
London with the Comte de Paris, took up his residence in 
the island of Jersey. He cannot but have felt that his 
popularity had failed him, and that his enchanter's wand 
1 Speech at Tours. 



GENERAL BOULANGER. 443 

was broken. From time to time he made spasmodic efforts 
to bring himself again to the notice of the pubUc. He 
offered repeatedly to return to France and stand his trial 
for conspiracy, provided that the trial might be conducted 
before a regular court of justice, and not before an espe- 
cial committee appointed by the Chambers. 

Meantime his domestic relations must have caused him 
poignant anxiety. His wife was his cousin, — a lady of the 
haute bourgeoisie in a provincial town. She appears to have 
felt herself unequal to what might be required of her as the 
wife of the national hero. She entertained apprehensions 
that her fate might be that of the Empress Josephine. 
When her husband became War Minister, she declined to 
preside over his receptions, and withdrew herself from his 
official residence, taking with her her two daughters, Helene 
and Marcelle. Thus deserted, Boulanger became open to 
scandals and reports, some true, and some false, such as 
would inevitably be circulated in France concerning such 
a man's relations with women. It is quite certain, how- 
ever, that at the height of his popularity he became infatu- 
ated with the divorced wife of a Baron de Bonnemains, — a 
lady well connected, and up to the time when Boulanger 
became her lover, of unstained reputation. She was also 
rich, having a fortune of 1,500,000 francs. She was not 
very beautiful, but was tender, gracious, and womanly. M. 
de Bonnemains had not made her a good husband, and her 
friends rejoiced when the law gave her a divorce. General 
Boulanger and his wife seem to have agreed to sever their 
marriage tie under the new French divorce law, which re- 
quires both parties to be examined by a judge, who is to try 
if possible to reconcile them ; but at the last moment Ma- 
dame Boulanger refused, upon rehgious grounds, her assent 
to a divorce, and the marriage of the general with Madame 
de Bonnemains became thenceforward impossible. 

The story is not a pleasant one, but it is necessary to 
relate it, because of its results. 

Madame de Bonnemains, whose constitution was con- 
sumptive, drooped and sickened in Jersey. She removed 



444 FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 

in the spring of 1891 to Brussels to try one of the new 
schemes for the cure of pulmonary trouble. The remedy 
seems to have hastened her death, which took place in 
July. General Boulanger never recovered from her loss. 
His friends and his funds had failed him, and the death of 
this woman, whom he had passionately loved, completely 
overwhelmed him. He spoke constantly of suicide, and in 
spite of precautions taken by his friends, he carried his 
purpose into effect upon her grave in the cemetery of 
Brussels, October 2, 1891. 

Whatever General Boulanger's faults may have been in 
relation to other women, he was devoted to his mother. 
The latter, who was eighty-six years old at the time of his 
death, resided in Paris, and when he was in the city he 
never suffered a day to pass without visiting her. A lock of 
her white hair was on his breast when he was dressed for 
burial. 



INDEX. 



Abdul Aziz, Sultan, 232. 

Abdul Kader, 82, 94. 

Abdul Medjid, 86. 

About, Edmond, quoted, 248. 

Adelaide, Madame, of Orleans, 20, 25, 
26, 55, 83, loS. 

Affre, Denis Auguste, Archbishop of 
Paris, 142 et seq. 

African generals, 94; their imprison- 
ment, 159 et seq. 

Albert, Prince, 100 ; visits Boulogne, 
180-182 ; his opinion of the empe- 
ror, 182-184, 217; of Maximilian, 
192. 

Algeria, 82, 83, 94, 134. 

Alison, Sir Archibald, quoted, 142, 
150. 

Alsace and Lorraine, 241, 242, 246- 
249, 386, 387. 

America, demands payment of French 
Spoliation Claims, 81 ; Louis Napo- 
leon sent to, 69 ; relations with 
Mexico, 195, 196, 210; Boulanger 
in, 429. 

Americans, what they saw of the 
coup (Vetat^ 160-162; of Paris in 
1870, 241, 245 ; of the siege, 273, 
275 ; of Versailles, 282-286. 

Angouleme, Louis Antoine, Duke of, 
and Dauphin, 12, 13, 21, 24, 26. 

Angouleme, Marie Therese, Duchess 
of, and Dauphine, 13, 28, 29, 48, 49. 

Appert, chaplain to Queen Marie 
Amelie, quoted, 56, 57. 

Arenenberg, 62, 64, 69. 

Aumale, Henri d'Orleans, Duke of, 
37, 3S, 94» 134,420,430,433- 



Barb^s, 95, 140. 

Barrot, Odillon, no, 112-114, 157. 

Baudin, 158, 384. 

Bazaine, Marshal, 202, 204, 257, 258, 

270, 277, 287, 288, 384. 
Belfort, 288, 299, 398, 399. 
Benedetti, 232. 
Bergeret, General, war delegate, 307, 

309- 
Berri, Charles Ferdinand, Duke of, 

12, 13. 
Berri, Marie Caroline, Duchess of, 

12, 13, 22, 26, 29, 40-49. 
Bismarck, Otto von, Prince, 219, 254, 

264, 267, 268, 271, 293-298. 
Blanc, Louis, quoted, 34, 40, 41, 46, 

52, 53, 65, 70; Louis Blanc himself, 

i3o> "^ZZ^ 134, 137, -140, 305, 306. 

Bombardment, of Paris, by the Prus- 
sians, 278, 279, 298, 299; during the 
Commune, 309, 310 ; of Strasburg, 
286, 287. 

Bonjean, Louis, Senator and Judge, 
327, ZZ'^, 332, ZZZ, 345- 

Bordeaux, 300, 383, 385-388. 

Bordeaux, Duke of. See Chambord. 

Boulanger, George Ernest Jean Marie, 
General, boyhood, 427, 428 ; army 
Hfe, 428, 429 ; sent to America, 429 ; 
to Tunis, 429 ; Minister of War, 
429, 430 ; popularity, 430-432 ; in- 
trigues with Legitimists, 433-439; 
influence declines, 440 ; leaves 
France, 440-442 ; domestic rela- 
tions, 443 ; death, 444. 

Bourbaki, General, 288, 384. 

Bourbons, 10, 14. 



446 



INDEX. 



Bourbon, Louis Henri Joseph, Duke 

of, 38* 39, 40- 
Broglie, Duke of, 405-408. 
Burgoyne, Sir John, 260, 262. 



Caffarel, General, 421. 

Cannon, 274, 275; at Montmartre, 

301, 302. 
Canrobert, Marshal, 216. 
Carbonari, 14 ; Louis Napoleon and 

his brother take the oaths, 63 ; never 

absolved, 70, 71, 179, 180, 186. 
Carlotta, Empress of Mexico, 36, 37, 

192-194, 198, 199, 201, 203, 204, 

211. 
Carmagnole, 23. 
Carnot, Hippolyte, 125, 425. 
Carnot, Sadi, fourth President of 

Third Republic, 424, 425, 435. 
Carrel, Armand, 47. 
Cathohc lady in Red Paris, 310-313. 
Cavaignac, Eugene, General, War 

Minister, Dictator, 140, 142-144, 

149, 152, 159, 160, 164. 
Chambord, Comte de, Henri V., Due 

de Bordeaux, 12, 26-29, 32, 40, 48, 

49, 39o> 391, 392, 403? 404, 416- 

418, 433. 
Changarnier, General, 82, 138, 139, 

T46, 148, 150, 152, 159, 160, 164. 
Chapultepec, 200, 209. 
Charles X,, 12, 15-17, 20-33. 
Chasseurs d'Afrique, 308. 
Christian Brothers, 277. 
Clemenceau, 306, 

Clement Thomas, General, 302, 392. 
Club of Communists, 273. 
Cluseret, General, war delegate, 308, 

309, 310, 317, 318, 359- 
Commune, 265,300-307, 314,321, ZZ'^^ 

349, 358, 359. 
Compiegne, Chateau de, 169, 176. 
Compiegne, Marquis de, narrative of 

suppression of the Commune, 355- 

358. 
Constantine, 82, 83, 93, 94. 
Council of the Commune, 306, 316, 
. 317, 3J9, 320, 358. 
Coup d^etat, 150-163. 
Courbet, artist, 315. 
Courbevoie, 88, 306, 307. 



Crimean War, 180, 185, 187, 219, 400. 
Crozes, Abbe, 323. 



Darboy, Archbishop of Paris, 323, 

324, 329-333- 
Decazes, Due de, 11. 
Deleschuze, war delegate, 317, ■^^'j, 

358, 359- 
Deputies imprisoned, 157, 158. 
Deutz, 44, 45, 380. 
Dickens, Charles, quoted, 182. 
Dombrowski, General, 309, 321, 361. 
Dominicans of Arceuil, 341, 342. 
Duguerry, Gaspard, Abbe, 323, 330, 

332. 
Duval, General, 307. 



Eagle, 75. 

Egalite, PhiUppe, Duke of Orleans, 

17, 18. 
Erckmann-Chartrian, quoted, 238, 247, 

248. 
Escobedo, General, 206, 208, 210. 
Eudes, General and war delegate, 307, 

317. 

Eugenie, Empress, 167-176,185, 186, 
197, 216, 217, 220, 22T, 232, 234- 
237, 241,243, 251,257-261, 428. 

Evans, Dr. Thomas, 259, 260. 



Faure, sings the" Marseillaise," 240, 
241, 244. 

Favre, Jules, 257, 267, 268, 270, 279, 
291-295, 298, 299. 

Ferre, 314, 315, 331, 333, 337. 

Ferry, Jules, 257, 414, 415, 424. 

Feucheres, Madame de, 39, 40. 

Fieschi, 34, 49-53. 

Fleury, General, 151, 177, 178, 223. 

Flourens, 307. 

Fortifications of Paris, 262-264. 

France under Louis XVIIL, 9, 10, 11, 
15 ; under Charles X., 16, 17, 20, 21 ; 
under Louis Philippe, 34, 35, 81, 
107, 108, 109 ; under the Provisional 
Government, 125, 126, 133, 135- 
140; under the Empire, 178, 179, 
218, 226, 227, 228 ; during the 
Franco-Prussian War, 238, 239, 246, 



INDEX. 



447 



247 ; under the Third Republic, 3S5, 

393. 43S, 441, 442. 

Francis, king of Naples, his political 
creed, 15, 16. 

Franco-Prussian War declared, 232; 
preparations in France, 238, 239, 
246, 249, 250 ; in Prussia, 238, 247; 
campaign from August 2 to Sep- 
tember 4, 241-244, 247-249, 251- 
255 ; siege of Paris, 262-264, 268- 
279 ; war in the provinces, 286- 
288. 

Funeral of Napoleon I., 87-92 ; of 
victims, 1848, 123 ; of Lamartine, 
146. 



Gallifet, Marquis de, 204, 368, 

369- 
Gambetta, Leon, 257, 270, 277, 27S, 

382-385, 3SS, 395, 396, 411-414. 
Garibaldi, Giuseppe, General, 288, 

296-298, 306. 
Genton, 330. 

German Emperor. See William. 
German Empire, 288, 289, 290, 291, 

298. 
German soldiers, 247, 248, 283, 284, 

285. 
Germans, residents in France, 250, 

251. 
Government, Provisional, in 1848, 117, 

118, 122, 125, 130-139; in 1870, 

257, 262, 267, 270, 271 ; in 1871, 

372, 396. 
Grand Livre, 339, 340. 
Greville, Charles, quoted, 11, 12, 16, 

17,35,87. 
Grevy, Jules, third President of Third 

Repukic, 157, 406, 408-414, 418, 

4i9» 423-426, 435. 
Guillotine burned, 315. 



Ham, 34, 76-80, 160, 163, 164. 

Hartwell, 11, 12. 

Henri V. See Chambord. 

Henrion, 331, 333. 

Herison, Comte d', 291-295. 

Hohenlohe, Princess Adelaide, 166. 



Hohenzollern, Prince Leopold of, 231 ; 
his sister, 166. 

Home, the SpirituaUst, 220, 221. 

Hortense, Queen of Holland, 59, 60, 
63, 64, 69, 234. 

Hostages, their arrest, 323, 324 ; im- 
prisonment, 325, 326, 327, 329 ; ex- 
ecution, 328-335, 364, 365. 

H6tel-de-Ville, 26, 27, 123, 130-132, 
138, 187, 270, 271, 279, 302, 303, 
306, 321. 

Hugo, Victor, 96, 153-156, 251-253, 
273, 304- 



Ibrahim Pasha, 84, 86. 

Indemnity to the Prussians, 294, 295, 

299, 373, 394- 
Irving, Washington, quoted, 168, 173. 
Isabella, Queen of Spain, 100, loi, 

220. 
Ismail Pasha, Khedive of Egypt, 232- 

236. 



Jackson, Andrew, General, 81, 82. 

Jaumont, quarries of, 2^9, 258. 

Jecker, Mexican banker, 202, 330. 

Joinville, Philippe, Prince de, 2>7j^7} 
91, 108, 109. 

Juarez, President of Mexican Repub- 
lic, 195, 197, 202, 209, 210. 

Juarists, 198, 201, 202. 205. 



Khedive of Egypt. See Ismail 
Pasha. 



Lafarge, Madame, 108. 

Lafayette, Gilbert, Marquis de, 14, 15, 

26, 27, 35, %!,' 

Laffitte, 14, 15, 25, 27, Zt,. 

Laguerre, 432, 433. 

Lamartine, Alphonse de, 109, 117, 
125-133, 135, 136, 13S, 140, M6._ 

Lamazou, Abbe de, narrative of resis- 
tance in La Roquette, 334-336. 

Lecomte, General, 302, 392. 

Ledru-Rollin, 125, 137-139, 140. 

Limouzin, Madame, 421, 422. 

Loire, Army of the, 274, 276, 277. 



448 



INDEX. 



' Lopez, General, 201, 206, 207, 214. 
'Louis XVI 1 1., 9-15. 

Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland, 59- 
61, 63, 80. 

Louis Napoleon, 58, 61-80, 140, 141, 
144-146, 150, 153; as Prince Presi- 
dent, 146-149, 165, 166. As Empe- 
ror, see Napoleon IIL 

Louis Philippe, King of the French, 
17-20, 25-27, 34-37, 49-5'> 54» 83, 
91, 95, 102, 107-112, 114, 121, 134. 

Lucchesi Palli, Count, 137, 138, 140. 

Lullier, 307, 317. 

Luzy, Mademoiselle de, 103, 104, 106, 
107. 



Macaulay, Lord, 425. 

MacMahon, Patrice, Marshal, Duke of 

Magenta, second President of Third 

Republic, 14, 248, 251, 253, 384, 

400, 402, 407-412. 
Mahmoud IL, Sultan, 84, 85, 86. 
Malmesbury, Lord, quoted, 261, 262. 
Marie Amelie, Queen of the French, 

19, 50. 5I' 54-57, 97-99, 112. 
Marmont, Marshal, Duke of Ragusa, 

21, 22, 26. 
"Marseillaise," 239-241, 244, 245. 
Maupas, De, Prefect of Police, 150- 

153- 
Maximilian, Emperor of Mexico, 58, 

191-194, 198-214. 
Megy, 316, 331, 336-338. 
Mehemet Ali, 84-87. 
Mejia, General, 205, 207, 209, 211- 

213. 
Mexico, 194-198, 200-205. 
Ministry of Marine (Navy Department 

building), 345-348. 
Ministry of National Defence, 246, 

251, 262, 266, 269-271, 279. 
Miramar, 193, 194, 201, 203. 
Miramon, General, 205, 207, 209, 211, 

212, 213. 
Mobiles, 122, 133, 138, 249, 250, 263, 

267, 269. 
Moltke, General von, 188, 189, 264, 

298, 299. 
Monroe doctrine, 196, 
Montholon, Count, 74, 76. 
Montijo. See Eugenie and Teba. 



Montpensier, Duke of, 37, 95, 100, 

loi, 115, 231. 
Montpensier, Duchess of, 37, 100, 

loi, 115,433- 
Moray, 51-53. 
Morny, Due de, 150, 152, 153, 157, 

160, 169, 177, 178. 
Mortier, Marshal, Duke of Treviso, 

50. 



Napoleon L, 58, 59, 62, 65 ; funeral 

of, 87-92, 226. 
Napoleon II., Due de Reichstadt, 58, 

64, 191. 
Napoleon III., 165, 166, 170, 175- 

190-197, 202, 203, 215, 216-228, 

249, 252, 254-256, 261, 262. 
Napoleon, eldest son of Louis and 

Hortense, 60. 
Napoleon, second son of Louis and 

Hortense, 61, 62, 63, 179. 
Napoleon (Plon-Plon), son of King 

Jerome, 166, 171, 220, 419. 
National Guard, 35, 88, 89, 133, 138, 

263, 268, 269, 280, 295, 301-303, 

305, 349, 350, 365, 371. 

National workshops, 133, 141-144. 

Narratives : Louis Napoleon's descent 
on Boulogne, 71-76; his escape from 
Ham, 70-80 ; of Victor Hugo dur- 
ing the CO?// cfetat^ 155, 156 ; of an 
American, 160-162 ; of the entry 
of the Prussians into Versailles, 
282-286; of a lady in Red Paris, 
310-313; of Paul Seigneret, 324- 
328 ; of the Abbe Lamazou, 334- 
336 ; of Count Orsi during the 
Commune, 313, 314; of his arrest as 
a Communist, 355-358; of a victim 
of Paris and Versailles, 360-371. 

Nemours, Due de, 37, 50, 108, 109, 
113, 118. 

Neuilly, 54, 96-99, 217. 

Nolte, Vincent, anecdote of Lafayette, 
14, 15. 



O'Brien, Smith, 135, 136. 
Oliphant, Mrs. M. E. W., quoted, 

131, 132, 350, 351- 
Ollivier, Emile, 224, 225, 245, 246. 



INDEX. 



449 



Ordonannces, 17,20-24. 

Orleans family, 36, it, 95, 140, 217, 

388, 419, 420. 
Orleans, Ferdinand, Duke of, 36, 93, 

95-100. 
Orleans, Helena, Duchess of, 115- 

118. 
Orsi, Joseph, Count, 71, 72; quoted, 

Ti^ 313-316, 352, 353> 354-35^- 
Orsmi, Felice, 1S5, 219. 
Oudinot, Duke of Reggio, General, 

147, 148. 



Palikao, Count Montauban, 246, 
249. 

Paris in 1830, 16, 17, 21, 22-25, 27; 
in 1848, 111-121 ; under the Empire, 
227; in July, 1870, 239, 240; in 
August, 1870, 244-246, 249, 250 ; in 
September, 256, 258, 262-264, 266 ; 
in the siege, 266, 269. 271-281 ; 
during the Commune, 305, 309-313, 
315, 316, 320-322,362, 363. 

Paris, Comte de, 114, 420, 433, 441, 
442. 

Parties in 1820, 9-11 ; in 1830, 21, 26, 
28, 34, 35 ; in 1848. 108, 109, 122- 
126 ; in 1850, 135, 136, 139, 140,147- 
149; in 1871, 385, 386; in 1873, 
402-404; in 1889,441, 442 ; Legiti- 
mists, 41, 433. 

Pasquier, Dr., 307. 

Peace signed. 280, 281, 299. 

Peasants, 121, 145, 183, 184, 246,431. 

Persigny, Fialin. Due de, 72, 76, 150, 
151, 177, 178, 190. 

Petit, General, 136. 

Pct7'oleuses, 321,322. 

Pigeon post, 273, 274. 

Piguellier, Colonel, 75. 

Plebiscites, 144, 165, 183, 184, 230, 
231,298. 

Poiret, 335. 

Polignac, Prince, 16, 17, 20, 23, 24. 

Praslin, Due de, 102 et seq. 

Prefecture of Police, 163, 325, 326, 

342-345= 
Prince Imperial (Napoleon Eugene 
Louis Jean Joseph), 64, 65, 187-190, 
242, 243, 260, 415, 416. 



Provisional Government, 1848, 121, 
122, 125, 130-139; in 1871, 372, 
387, 389, 394-396. 



QUERETARO, 205, 2o6, 207-213. 



Rambouillet, 27, 28. 
Reichshoffen. See Worth. 
Remusat, 397. 
Republic, Second, 130-149, 165 ; 

Third, 257, 262, 265, 372, 404, 435, 

438-442. 
Restoration 9-15. 
Revolution, 1830, 20-28 ; 1848, 108- 

126, 132; 1870, 257, 258, 262. 
Rochefort, Henri, Marquis de, 229, 

257, 270, 317, 259, 392, 432. 
Rome, 147, 148. 
Rossel, General, war delegate, 318, 

319, 392. 



Saarbruck, 241, 242, 244. 

Salm-Salm, Prince, 205, 207 ; Princess, 
208, 209. 

Saint-Arnaud, Jacques Leroy, Mar- 
shal, %'},., 151, 178. 

Sarcey, Francisque de, quoted, 267, 
270, 276, 277. 

Scrntin de lisfe, Sci'utin (Parron- 
dissement, 406, 407, 440. 

Seigneret, Paul, 324-328. 

Seisset, Admiral, 305. 

Simon, Jules, 257, 308, 408, 410. 

Soledad, La, treaty of, 197, 198. 

Shah of Persia, 405. 

Spain, 12, 231, 232. 

Spanish marriages, 100, loi, 102, 109. 

" Spectator," The, quoted, 242. 

Strasburg, 64-69, 268, 286, 287. 

Switzerland, 69, 288. 

Suez Canal, 232-236. 



Talleyrand - P^rigord, Charles, 

Prince of Benevento, 23, 26. 83, 84. 
Teba, Madame de {nee Fitzpatrick, 
Marquise de Montijo), 167, 168, 
169. 



29 



450 



INDEX. 



Thiers, Adolphe, first President of 
the Third RepubUc, 21, 25, 87, 112, 
113, 229, 246, 269-271, 299, 305, 
315,320; biographical sketch, 372- 
382, 386, 387, 389, 392-399, 405, 
408. 

Thiers, Madame, 180, 389, 394, 399. 

Ticknor, Mr. George, quoted, 167, 
168. 

Tissot, Victor, quoted, 191. 

Trochu, Jules, General, 257, 262, 270, 
271, 276-279, 294. 

Tuileries, 23, 50, 116, 117, 119, 120, 
171, 172, 190, 221, 241, 257-259, 
320, 321, 349. 



Uzifes, Duchess of, 437, 439. 



Vamb^ry, Colonel, 66, 67. 
Valerien, Fort, 263, 307. 
Vendome, Place, massacre, 305 ; col- 
umn, 315, 316. 



Versailles, 93, 282-286, 288, 290, 305, 

389,390. 
Versailles troops enter Paris, 320, 321, 

355-358. 
Villele, M. de, 16. 
Victim of Paris and Versailles, 360- 

371- 
Victoria, Queen of England, 100-102, 

184-186-192, 215-219. 
Vinoy, General, 279, 301, 307. 



Walewski, Count, 177, 179, 224. 
Washburne, E. B., American Minis- 
ter, 251, 269, 338. 
Wellington, Arthur, Duke of, 22, 23, 

179- 

White Terror, 11. 

William, King of Prussia, 219, 264, 
267, 268 ; made Emperor of Ger- 
many, 288-291. 

Wilson, Daniel, 420-423. 

Wimpfen, General, 252, 253. 

Wissembourg, 242. 

Worth, 243, 247, 248. 



LE My '08 



1 



